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Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
SOME ASPECTS OF MACHINE LEARNING IN
LOCATION TASKS
Kateryna Kononova
1
1
Department of Economic Cybernetics and Applied Economics, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv
National University, e-mail: kateryna.kononova@karazin.ua
Abstract. As a result of the study, locations for Pan-Asian food delivery service
in Kharkiv have been found so that their network evenly covered the entire city;
and different units were at an acceptable distance from each other. The
company’s order database allowed us to apply ML algorithms, in particular,
clustering methods to find optimal locations. Three clustering models were
developed and a series of experiments were conducted with each of them. The
analysis of the model results allowed us to confirm both hypotheses put forward
in the paper, namely: 1) reducing dimension does not skew clustering results
obtained on the full database; 2) urban traffic has a significant impact on
clustering results. This made us recommend pre-group the data and consider
urban traffic in location tasks for the referred company.
Keywords: Location task, Machine Learning, Clustering, Shift Means, K-
means, API, Google maps.
1. Introduction
The company’s success significantly depends on the location. It affects not only the
cost of rent, access to materials, workers, transportation, but also the perception of the
brand and expansion of the customer number.
Location databases have enabled companies to do initial screening themselves,
hence reducing their need to rely on external experts to providing only very specific
information on locations [7]. Machine Learning (ML) algorithms are effectively used
for finding the right locations using accumulated companies’ data; especially,
clustering methods, which within the geomarketing approach, use spatial data
(coordinates, address, registry or other bindings) along with general information.
Various theoretical aspects of ML application in the location tasks are explored in
the scientific literature. Montejano et al. overviewed different location models used
within the geomarketing field, exemplifying it through the use of Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) [8]. Serajnik et al. performed the statistical analysis,
evaluated geodata and carried out spatial analysis with a subsequent cartographic
visualization to define mall location strategy [11]. Rosu et al. used quantitative
models for measuring accessibility to the existing shopping centers in the city,
calculating thus their catchment area, for identifying a suitable location for a new
shopping center [9].