Influence of location population-mix n siting urban telephone booths

Abstract

In keeping with tl;)esocial requirement, public telephone system has been introduced in urban areas of the country with objective of providing satisfactory service to the public. The level of service and hence the 'amount of social benefi t to be ,achieved is based on the socio-economic condition of a country. Thus assessment of the system utilization with satisfactory level of service is an important factor in siting of public telephone booths. In the present work an analysis of the existing system has been carried out to predict the nature of usage characteristics and to assess the demand-supply situation of the system in Dhaka city. A hypothesis was made that, profession/occupationwise classification of the potential users has influence over service time which in turns determine ~he system demand. Actual data were collected from a sample of five telephone booths in different consecutive days Analysis of this data revealed that lack of scientific methodology in siting of booths has yielded an undesired level of system utilization. All overload condition prevailed in all the booths which would be reflected to the total system should an exhaustive study was carried out for the total system. , I The hypothesis regarding the influence of locational populationmix on the usage time by classwise population has -been proved valid statistically at various significant levels. Finally a model was developed. The outcome of "this model would give management a scientific basis, a tool to determine optimum number of booths required to meet predete~mined level of system utilization.