The problem of efficient districting

Districting involves a partition of a large area into sub-areas (districts) in order to maintain distributed operations within each sub-area. In general, each district contains at least one local centre (depot) and is independently responsible for the operations performed within its borders. The operations within each district typically involve routeing. There is a lot of work in the literature on location of depots and on routeing from given depots to a given network. However, very little work exists on the determination of district borders in a way that would ensure efficient operations. In this article the authors highlight the importance of performing good districting as a bridging step between location and routeing, and emphasise its potential to obtain improved operation schemes.