Decision support framework for space-use efficiency and 1 arrangement of public services

20 This article focuses on the issue of a sustainable space-use in public facilities and 21 beneficial arrangement of services. Uncorrelated facility planning and service 22 programming as well as environmental factors cause discrepancies between space 23 demand and space supply leading to space overuse or underuse. To enhance the 24 functional and economic efficiency of public facilities a conceptual framework, 25 which is a planning and evaluation tool for decision support, is presented and 26 discussed on examples. The framework consists of two decisive elements: space27 Manuscript Click here to access/download;Manuscript;Manuscript.docx

The purpose of facility location problem is to find optimal place for facility 117 construction assuring good accessibility and minimizing costs. This topic has been widely 118 studied especially in the field of operations research (Shmoys, Swamy & Levi, 2004) On the other hand, facility layout problem seeks for the best arrangement of spaces 122 and activities within the building (Drira, Pierreval & Hajri-Gabouj, 2007). It is used in 123 the design phase for allocation of space in new buildings or to repurpose space in the existing ones (Liggett, 2000). There are numerous studies dealing with this issue, for issue that is applied in manufacturing and service industries to deal with allocation of 128 resources and tasks over given periods of time (Pinedo, 2015). This topic has been studied 129 also in the facility management context, for example by Gupta & Gupta (1988 The proposed framework fills the gap between these three subjects. It does not 132 consider the process of building and locating new facility but instead it focuses on 133 facilities that have been built and used already for some time. Furthermore, it analyses a 134 set of buildings indicating those where utilization is far from optimal and proposes 135 compatible services to be combined with the existing ones instead of focusing on 136 particular buildings in details (which is a domain of facility layout as well as scheduling 137 problem). Consequently, it does not interfere into internal building structure or the task 138 organization, however the outcome of the framework may provide an indication for 139 internal layout or scheduling redesign. 140 The basic assumption of the framework is a logical separation of service (the 141 intangible component) from facility (the physical component). Habitually, facility and 142 service are considered as one entity (e.g. a school). However, it is necessary to break this 143 association and think of service and facility as of two independent items that should information that lead to improved performance; otherwise less than optimal decisions are 159 made (Gheisari & Irizarry, 2011). SA in the context of decision making has been depicted 160 in Figure 2. 161 Decision support framework 162 Efficient management of public facilities and services requires a holistic approach 163 encompassing legal, managerial, social and technological instruments. Local governments have not enough power to deal with all these issues and therefore ad-hoc 165 solutions are applied to mitigate negative effects of this unfavourable situation. This, in 166 practice, translates into optimization that usually considers only economic aspect and is 167 narrowed to cost reduction (Pym, Taylor & Tofts, 2007). For this reason, the presented 168 framework is an evaluation and planning tool allowing analysing two types of 169 relationships: service-facility and service-service, on numerous public facilities. It 170 consists of two decisive processes that correspond to each type of relationship. Space-use 171 analysis reflects the service-facility relationship and allows for determining current space 172 utilizationa crucial information for enhancing space economic efficiency on the one 173 hand, and assuring appropriate amount of space for all activities, on the other. Service 174 compatibility analysis reflects the service-service relationship and reports on how 175 services offered in one facility (or planned to be offered in one facility) are related to each 176 other in various aspectsa crucial information for service beneficial arrangements. 177 As depicted in Figure 3, the framework consists of four processes (data insertion, 178 space-use analysis, service compatibility analysis and decision making), one decision 179 point (verifying the number of services) and data repository (space-use inventory). At 180 the process' initial phase, data about facility area and quantitative description of service 181 or services is necessary. This information may be inserted manually or imported 182 automatically if such a repository is available. Next, the number of services is verified. If 183 more than one service is offered within the facility, compatibility analysis is performed space available for service provision -is taken into account (space supply).
Simultaneously, the service is decomposed to its activities. Each activity is characterized 204 by its type, duration and number of users. Based on this data, spatial requirements are 205 determined (space demand). Subsequently the two values are compared. If space demand 206 corresponds with space supply, the facility is performing well in terms of space efficiency 207 (space conformity). Otherwise there are some discrepancies that may take two forms: 208 space scarcity or space excess. The first one occurs when space demand surpasses the 209 space supply. This of course is not a desired situation because lack of space affects 210 conditions of service provision preventing it from performing its full potential. Space 211 scarcity is relatively easy to detect because usually service directors complain about it. 212 The other form of discrepancy occurs when facility offers more space than is required by 213 service or services hosted within. In such case facility satisfies the service spatial 214 requirements fully but is not economically efficient since space excess can be considered 215 as waste of resources. It is not so easy to detect since people's needs are unlimited and 216 service directors usually are not willing to report on having too many resources unless 217 they are rewarded for it. Thus, the determination of space needs has to be done in a more 218 objective way using specific standards, such as Occupant Load Factor (OLF) or even 219 Space Syntax in case of more complex facilities.  Scoperefers to service accessibility. Service can be classified as Local (when it is 255 design to serve to local community, e.g. district library), or Global (when it is 256 dedicated to all city inhabitants, e.g. hospital or administrative services) 257 Features describing a service from the administration perspective: 258  Affiliation -represents an administration department responsible for service 259 provision. This characteristic depends strictly on the context of a particular city due 260 to different organizational schemes.
users, but also service staff and other, indirect participants. Alike the User 263 characteristic, Stakeholder reflects the age structure: Children, Youth, Adults and 264 Elderly. 265  Deliveryrefers to the mode of service, which can be a Front office (e.g. social 266 service with citizen attention), or Back office (e.g. administration). 267 Each of these characteristics has to be expressed quantitatively by assigning a 268 compositional value to each attribute. This value represents the degree to which the 269 attribute defines the service. For instance, if children are 80% of service users and adults 270 20%, the compositional values of these attributes would be 0.8 and 0.2 respectively. 271 Posteriorly, the distance between corresponding values of two services is calculated to 272 determine the degree of their coincidence. 273 For that purpose, we take advantage of the City-block distance which represents 274 a distance between two points as a sum of the absolute differences of their coordinates 275 (Panigrahi, 2014 Values of other characteristics are to be calculated in the same way. The results 287 obtained for all characteristics provide an overview of the total degree of similarity 288 between Service 1 and Service 2. The overview of the process of service compatibility 289 analysis is presented in Figure 5. 290 The result of service compatibility analysis is a percentage value representing to 291 what degree the services are 'of their kind'. The higher the coincidence, the higher 292 probability of advantageous combination. To exemplify this, a thirty municipal services 293 were selected from the city of Girona, Spain based on their diversity, to demonstrate 294 services of different types and characteristics. To this end, the sample include: cultural, 295 education, administration, social, sport and heath care services. The finale result of 296 compatibility analysis is depicted in Figure 6 in compatibility matrix. 297 Compatibility matrix indicates what services are compatible and could be offered 298 together (values close to 100) and services which combination should be avoided (values close to 0). The compatibility value provides a common denominator for comparison of 300 different combinations of services. It does not establish fixed ranges of compatibility but 301 settle which combination of services is more adequate. For instance, if compatibility 302 degree of Service x and Service y is 67%, and compatibility of Service x and Service z is 303 76%, it means that combination of services x and z is more recommended because the 304 degree of their compatibility is higher. However, it would be improper to say that service 305 x is compatible with service z but incompatible with service y. Thus, the matrix visualizes 306 compatibility of various services helping in taking decision on service (re)arrangements 307 to favour advantageous combinations and discriminate the unfavourable ones. 308

Space-use inventory 309
Space-use inventory is the outcome of the space-use analysis process and compatibility 310 analysis process. It contains information about space utilization in multiple public 311 facilities and characteristics of services offered within. This information is presented in a 312 visual and user-friendly form using Google Maps API as depicted in Figure 7, where 313 location of five evaluated facilities has been represented spatially by markers. Facilities 314 have been clustered into four quarters and highlighted with a corresponding colour: Q1 -315 high utilization (over 75%), dark-green colour; Q2 -mid-high utilization (between 50% 316 and 75%), light-green colour; Q3 -mid-low utilization (between 25% and 50%), orange 317 colour; Q4 -low utilization (less than 25%), red colour. In addition, each marker holds a number representing the degree of facility utilization and encapsulates a more detailed 319 information about facility name, utilization and area, as it is shown on the example of 320 Cultural Centre Marfa (B). 321 In addition, the inventory contains information about type of service or services 322 that are offered in each facility together with their quantitative characteristic. This 323 characteristic is used for the purpose of service compatibility analysis in two ways. First 324 of all, in case of MSF, it is used for evaluation of services already combined and offered 325 together. The evaluation aims to determine whether this combination is favourable or not. 326 Furthermore, service compatibility analysis is also conducted to verify whether additional 327 service that is planning to be introduced fits the one that is being offered already. 328 Regardless the case, relationships between services are represented graphically to 329 facilitate interpretation. the radar chart is more convenient for decision making since it does not only provide a 351 total compatibility value, but also helps to understand why. 352

Decision making 353
The framework helps in obtaining SA on spatial resources and indicates possible service 354 combinations; however, it does not make decisions by itself. The final decision has to be 355 taken by decision maker -a human being. This responsible professional shall analyse the 356 results and combine them with his experience, human judgment and other intangible 357 factors such as policies and urban planning acts to take the appropriate decision. facility economic efficiency by maximizing space-use. Another one is to improve service 360 quality by enhancing space accordingly to the needs. The last objective is to increase 361 general performance by reorganizing services in the meaningful way. 362