Evaluation of the of Public Network Location Day Care Center: Models and Case Study

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the spatial distribution of public day care centers, based on two complementary analyzes: (i) Analysis of the Optimal or proposed Location; (ii) Analysis of the Expansion of existing units; and (ii) Analysis of the opening of new units. This problem is an important aspect of public administration, and can attend problems of inequalities observed in public education, in terms of accessibility and availability of places, for example. The mathematical programming models were generated using the VB.NET© modeling language and were solved by the CPLEX© solver. The usability of such models is tested using the data collected in the city of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. The results showed that there is an urgent need in expanding the number of vacancies in the existing day care centers, in order to attend the population and, also, the goals of the National Education Plan.