Geographic Information System-Based AHP-TOPSIS Approach for School Site Selection: A Case Study for Ankara

Abstract

Identification of school zones is a multi-criteria decision-making problem, which requires a collective evaluation of many criteria, including population density, transportation facilities, level of the population covered, safety of the region. One of the important points that need to be considered during the decision-making phase is the legal restrictions. In this study, a new solution approach is suggested that uses Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methods based on Geographical Information System (GIS) for identification of the most convenient location for a primary school to be opened. First, state lands that can accommodate a school in accordance with the development plan have been identified as candidate locations. Among these candidate locations, lands that comply with legal restrictions and cover students within given walking distances with other existing schools were identified as alternative locations by using ArcGIS ESRI software. Then, weights of criteria that were determined by literature reviews were calculated with AHP and alternative locations were ranked with TOPSIS method by using these weights. Suggested approach has been applied to Cankaya district of Ankara city, and results have been presented.