Geodata-driven Temporal Markets Location

Since the start of quarantine in Peru due to the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional markets have had an increasing customer demand. Thus, the spread of COVID-19 increased in these locations. To respond to this situation, the Municipality of Lima proposed the implementation of temporal markets to increase the supply and number of markets in the city and, consequently, reduce the agglomerations.

My team and I at the Universidad del Pacifico collaborate with the Lima Municipality in the identification of optimal locations for temporal markets. We used variables related to Market accessibility, Population density around the market, Market capacity, Flow of people in the market (per hour), Possible locations for temporal markets (e.g parks and sports courts) in a Facility Location Problem (FLP) model that allows minimizing transportation costs while considering factors such as demand. In this case, we are going to minimize the distance traveled by people to the markets (reduce mobility) considering that the number of people who attend each market does not exceed their capacity. The selected locations were shared among local authorities in every district of Lima.