POSSIBILITY OF APPLYING ROAD NETWORK PROPORTIONAL DIVISION TO DISASTER RESPONSE FACILITY PLACEMENT PLANS IN HILLED RURAL AREAS

Abstract

 Recently, aeromedical services by helicopter have been coming into widespread use at scenes of emergency medical transportation in Japan. Previous research has examined rendezvous point placement planning for helicopters with traditional voronoi division and road network voronoi division in regions with high density road networks. In this study, to examine the usefulness and transfer possibility, we applied those methods to a region with a low density road network, and checked acceptable populations for rendezvous points. From the result of a two-analysis method in a region with a low density road network, it became clear that the acceptable population of rendezvous points differs. The coefficient of variation for acceptable populations in particular differed between the results in regions with high and low density road networks. We found that road network voronoi division is suitable for checking the acceptable population of rendezvous points in regions that include low density road networks. In addition, it is important to use those methods for disaster response facility placement plans depending on the condition of the region with consideration of the density of the road network.