Open Access

ARTICLE

Models to Simulate Effective Coverage of Fire Station Based on Real-Time Travel Times

Sicheng Zhu, Dingli Liu^*, Weijun Liu, Ying Li, Tian Zhou

Department of Engineering Management, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410114, China

* Corresponding Author: Dingli Liu. Email:

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2024, 139(1), 483-513. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2023.044809

Received 09 August 2023; Accepted 24 October 2023; Issue published 30 December 2023

Abstract

In recent years, frequent fire disasters have led to enormous damage in China. Effective firefighting rescues can minimize the losses caused by fires. During the rescue processes, the travel time of fire trucks can be severely affected by traffic conditions, changing the effective coverage of fire stations. However, it is still challenging to determine the effective coverage of fire stations considering dynamic traffic conditions. This paper addresses this issue by combining the traveling time calculation model with the effective coverage simulation model. In addition, it proposes a new index of total effective coverage area (TECA) based on the time-weighted average of the effective coverage area (ECA) to evaluate the urban fire services. It also selects China as the case study to validate the feasibility of the models, a fire station (FS-JX) in Changsha. FS-JX station and its surrounding 9,117 fire risk points are selected as the fire service supply and demand points, respectively. A total of 196 simulation scenarios throughout a consecutive week are analyzed. Eventually, 1,933,815 sets of valid sample data are obtained. The results showed that the TECA of FS-JX is 3.27 km², which is far below the standard requirement of 7.00 km² due to the traffic conditions. The visualization results showed that three rivers around FS-JX interrupt the continuity of its effective coverage. The proposed method can provide data support to optimize the locations of fire stations by accurately and dynamically determining the effective coverage of fire stations.

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Keywords

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