Allocation Analysis Of Post Office

Post office, as one of urban public service facilities, benefits great to urban residents. Its powerful collection-delivery network provides us great convenient on information communication. However, with the rapid urban developing speed, changes on both urban spatial structure and population structure affect the spatial efficiency of post office. The existing spatial structure of post office is no longer suitable for the changed situation.Out of this consideration, this research is designed for optimising the spatial structure of post offices as to achieve an effective postal service delivery system. Location-allocation model, as its good performance on optimal site selection field, is used to evaluation and optimising the location problem of post office. By integrated with GIS, the location-allocation model can generates a set of solution spaces that help decision makers to narrow down their searches and decisions for site selection. It can also enable them to have a better view of the problem and to test different scenarios by varying the objectives to be considered, and the type of location-allocation model used can be changed according to the need of planners and decision makers.The case study is carried out on this background. Yichang city, a middle scale city bearing rapid urban development in central China, is selected to do the research. Firstly the accessibility of the existing system of post office is evaluated. And then, the optimal goals are given. After that the appropriate location-allocation model is chosen and applied. The optimal configuration is then compared with the existing system.By applying the location-allocation model, the accessibility of local post office is increased with relocating facilities and adding new ones. The paper demonstrates the using of location-allocation model can improve the spatial accessibility of existing post offices in cost-efficient way with the limited resources.Also, with the achieved optimal configuration, we can use it to evaluate the existing system of post offices, guide the planning and provide decision makers spatial decision support for debate and eventual location decision.