Point Demand Forecasting

This paper provides geographic information system (GIS) methods and empirical models to forecast point demand for home-delivered goods. A point forecast consists of stops on a street network, including demand at each stop. The purpose of the forecast is to support a network optimization model, based on the traveling salesman problem, to locate one or more new facilities in a region. We illustrate our approach with a case study of home-delivered meals (meals on wheels) in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.