Travel-time simulation to locate and staff temporary facilities under changing construction demand

Temporary facilities on construction sites are needed to support the labor force during the course of their work. Rules of thumb have traditionally been used to decide on the location and capacity of those facilities, but the demand for support is project-dependent and changes as the construction progresses at a rate specific to each trade discipline. This paper presents a more systematic method for facility location and capacity sizing based on travel-time simulation. Actual site circumstances, including the location of a temporary facility relative to the location of the workers, as well as workers' needs, travel times and service times are taken into account. The objective is to identify the best on-site location for temporary facilities on a project-by-project basis. When real-time data becomes available as the construction progresses, it can be incorporated in the model to generate even more realistic output. Tool-room location is used as an illustration. The presented simulation model yields data to assess how much traveling and waiting time is tolerable compared to the cost of increasing the capacity of the support facility or providing services at additional locations.