Errors Caused by Rounded Data in Two Simple Facility Location Problems

As a rule, data to be used in locational analysis are either rounded up or rounded down. Therefore, error is incurred if such location data are used. The objective of this paper is to examine location error and cost error due to rounding in unweighted minisum and minimax problems in one‐dimensional continuous space. Several conclusions on rounding effects are obtained by examining the respective mean‐squared errors. First, rounding tends to exert more serious influence on the minisum problem than on the minimax problem. Second, in both location problems, the location error shows a pattern that is the inverse of that of the cost error. 1991 The Ohio State University