Evaluating Spatial Service And Layout Efficiency Of Municipal Wi-fi Facilities For Smartcity Planning

As a solution to solve a series of economic and social problems brought about by unprecedented rapid urbanization,smart city construction has started in the world.Currently,under the close integration of Mobile Internet technology and government public services and residents living services,the use of public Wi-Fi hotspot technology to provide public services has become a new trend.In order to promote the smart city construction,free wireless network coverage projects have incorporated into urban development planning and construction in many cities at home and abroad.This paper explores a method to evaluate spatial service and layout efficiency of municipal Wi-Fi facilities for cyber infrastructure planning in the construction of a smart city.Based on the equilibrium principle that Wi-Fi services supply should meet the spatial demands of recreation,urgency and security,two evaluation models were built.In the first model,the spatial service efficiency of Wi-Fi facilities is measured by a mean ratio of three types of demand space covered by Wi-Fi services.In the other model,spatial layout efficiency of each Wi-Fi facility is assessed by summing the amount ratios of demand spaces within its influence area to the average amount per type of Wi-Fi facilities-demand load indicator and relationships with its adjacent facilities.Corresponding statistical methods and analysis processes were also designed using related function modules in ArcGIS software.The approach was applied to Wuhan city in 2016.After overlaying influence areas of 688 Wi-Fi facilities with demand spaces of 137 points for recreation,1200.99 km roads for urgency,121.54 km2 regions for security access,the results show a spatial disequilibrium between supply and demand of Wi-Fi services in Wuhan due to lack of comprehensive planning.Specifically,(1)There are 67 points,700.76 km roads and 42.59 km2 regions of demand spaces covered by Wi-Fi services,corresponding spatial service efficiencies on recreation,emergency and security demand of Wi-Fi facilities are 48.91%,58.35%and 35.04%respectively,and the total spatial service efficiency is 47.43%.(2)Among all the Wi-Fi facilities,there are 481 carrying saturated demands,3 straying from center of demand spaces and 204 being redundant,and the total spatial layout efficiency of Wi-Fi facilities is 43.01%.(3)Due to lack of comprehensive planning,there exists spatial disequilibrium between supply and demand of Wi-Fi services in Wuhan:in the center areas nearby the confluence of Yangtze River and Han River,dense and massive redundant Wi-Fi facilities should be optimized;whereas new Wi-Fi facilities should be supplemented in most of the other areas.These results have illustrated the general situations and spatial layout issues on Wi-Fi municipal facilities in Wuhan.Since many metropolitan cities experience the same problem,this novel approach for evaluating the efficiencies of municipal Wi-Fi facilities will find wide application in the future and offer improved evaluation strategies for researchers and policymakers.