School structure planning - skolplanering.se

Skolplanering.se is an innovative tool that helps municipalities optimize the planning of schools and preschools, both in the short and long term.

The tool has been developed by Geografiska Informationsbyrån in collaboration with Östersund Municipality, where it has already been tested, and where it today serves as a valuable tool during school structure planning.By analyzing the schools´ capacities, as well as where students will live in the future, Skolplanering.se gives municipalities the opportunity to make informed decisions about where and when it is most efficient to build new schools, expand existing schools or reduce the capacity of schools with low utilization.

Thus, Skolplanering.se contributes to a more environmentally and economically sustainable use of school buildings and infrastructure.The basis for the accessibility analyzes in the tool is that the children´s total distance to their school or preschool must be minimized, taking into account the schools’ and preschools’ capacity limitations.

This is different from tools in conventional geographic information systems, where it is not possible to account for capacities.Taking the capacities of schools and preschools into account brings algorithmic challenges, which Skolplanering.se solves through a geographically adapted variant of the push-relabel algorithm for the min-cost max-flow problem.

In this way, we can be sure that we find the optimal way to place students in schools, and thanks to the geographical adaptations, the algorithm is also very efficient, even for a large number of students and schools.

This means that planners can quickly analyze many different scenarios.By simplifying analyzes and visualization of data, Skolplanering.se reduces the need for manual methods and special knowledge about geographic information systems.

This means that more professional groups and organizations within municipalities can use and benefit from the tool, which leads to better collaboration in school planning and decision-making.