Toward an optimal deployment of fire stations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract EN

Emergency services which commonly include fire, ambulance, and police services, have geographical distribution characteristics of request of service on one hand and a system of facilities deployed to respond to that request, on the other.

Proper deployment of emergency service facilities in an urban environment contributes significantly to the efficiency and effectiveness of providing emergency service.

Planning, can contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of providing emergency services through alternative deployment strategies, e.g.; by evaluating the existing and, where necessary, recommending proposed spatial distribution of service facilities within a given urban environment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existing allocation and location of fire service stations in the city of Riyadh and to recommend an alternative strategy for the deployment of fire stations within the city comparing, also, the expected performance of such deployment with those of the present deployment.

For this purpose, the “Parametric Allocation” and “Site Evaluation” models were calibrated to provide the analytical basis for subsequently focusing on the requirements, constraints and results of the tests of those models, along with recommendations for their future applications.

The test of models, notwithstanding data problems, have shown that an incremental increase in the number of service stations produces significantly greater level of improvement in the travel times for emergency services and that the methodology employed can help produce definitive strategies regarding deployment of fire services.