New project intends to solve sectorisation problems
The StoSS project was promoted by INESC TEC's Centre for Enterprise Systems Engineering (CESE). Its main objective is the broad study of sectorisation problems and the development of a decision support system that can support decision making concerning sectorisation. The official kick-off meeting took place at INESC TEC on 16 October.
Sectorisation, which is very much related to geographical issues, means dividing a large region into smaller ones or gathering elemental regions into larger ones in order to obtain a better organisation or the simplification of a large problem into smaller ones by promoting groups with similar characteristics.
Usually, sectorisation involves several criteria, which makes the decision making complicated. Of the many applications in which sectorisation is found, there are some examples like the division of a region for the establishment of political districts, the design of sales territories to be distributed by a set of vendors, the division of health care and policing areas, the design of solid urban waste collection, the cleaning of streets, the definition of school areas, the definition of maintenance operations, among others.
The meeting was attended by Ana Maria Rodrigues and José Soeiro Ferreira from INESC TEC and Cristina Lopes and Cristina Oliveira from CEOS.PP and Maria João Cortinhal from BRU-UNIDE-IUL.
The StoSS project - Sectorization to Simplify and Solve, which will last for 36 months, is led by INESC TEC and has a partnership with CEOS.PP (ISCAP-P.Porto) and BRU-UNIDE-IUL (ISCTE-IUL).
The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with UP-FEUP and P.Porto-ISCAP.