On solving the discrete location problems when the facilities are prone to failure

The classical discrete location problem is extended here, where the candidate facilities are subject to failure. The unreliable location problem is defined by introducing the probability that a facility may become inactive. The formulation and the solution procedure have been motivated by an application to model and solve a large size problem for locating base stations in a cellular communication network. We formulate the unreliable discrete location problems as 0–1 integer programming models, and implement an enhanced dual-based solution method to determine locations of these facilities to minimize the sum of fixed cost and expected operating (transportation) cost. Computational tests of some well-known problems have shown that the heuristic is efficient and effective for solving these unreliable location problems.