Site Selection of Natural Gas Emergency Response Team Centers in Istanbul Metropolitan Area Based on GIS and FAHP

The location of natural gas emergency response team centers (NGERTCs) is critical in terms of addressing natural gas notifications that require a timely emergency response. The selection of NGERTCs in Istanbul has an important place in terms of providing better service, due to the necessity of responding to emergency natural gas notifications within 15 min, in addition to the over 200,000 natural gas notifications per year and heavy traffic conditions. Therefore, this study proposes a solution based on GIS and FAHP to determine suitable NGERTC locations in Istanbul Metropolitan Area. In the first stage of the study, the required 15-min coverage areas for emergency calls for 36 existing NGERTCs in Istanbul were extracted and the adequacy of their locations was analyzed. In the second stage of the study, the weights of seven criteria determined for new NGERTC site selection were calculated by the FAHP method. With spatial analysis made, 12 new NGERTC locations were proposed. Finally, re-coverage analysis was performed for proposed and existing NGERTCs, and changes in coverage area within a 15 min response time were analyzed. Natural gas network coverage increased from 70.04% to 83.86%, and natural gas subscriber coverage increased from 91.03% to 96.27%. The results show that GIS and FAHP are worth using in selecting suitable NGERTC locations.