Location Evaluation of Childcare Facilities Focusing on Transportation in Japanese Urban Areas

Abstract

In recent Japan, as there has been an increase of dual-income households and the demand for childcare facilities has especially increased especially in urban areas, childcare facilities and workers are lacking and it leads to the serious issue of children on waiting lists. Based on the background mentioned above, using statistical method, geographical information system (GIS) and public open data, scenario analysis to select transportation, the present study aimed to propose a method to quantitatively evaluate the current location of childcare facilities in Japanese urban areas. In the present study, the model of the p-median problem used to obtain the optimal location of facilities was modified, and a method to evaluate the current situation concerning the shortage or overage of childcare facilities by district was proposed. As evaluations are conducted using quantitative data such as the specialization coefficient of person trip for transportation and the distance between childcare facilities and districts, the evaluation results are also quantitative, making it an effective indicator for evaluating the locations of childcare facilities. Additionally, the specialization coefficient of person trip for transportation and the distance between childcare facilities and districts were calculated based on public open data. Therefore, the evaluation method in the present study has a high temporal reproducibility as well as spatial reproducibility.