Abstract
There is a perception that teaching space in universities is a rather
scarce resource. However, some studies have revealed that in many institutions
it is actually chronically under-used. Often, rooms are occupied only half the
time, and even when in use they are often only half full. This is usually measured
by the “utilisation” which is basically the percentage of available ’seat-hours’
that are employed. In real institutions, this utilisation can often takes values as
low as 20-40%.
One consequence of such low utilisation is that space managers are under pressure
to make a more efficient use of the available teaching space. However, better
management is hampered because there does not appear to be a good understanding
within space management (near-term planning) of why this happens.
Nor, a good basis within space planning (long-term planning) of how best to
accommodate the expected low utilisations. This motivates our two main goals:
(i) To understand the factors that drive down utilisations, (ii) To set up methods
to provide better space planning.
Here, we provide quantitative evidence that constraints arising from timetabling
and location requirements easily have the potential to explain the low utilisations
seen in reality. Furthermore, on considering the decision question “Can
this given set of courses all be allocated in the available teaching space?” we
find that the answer depends on the associated utilisation in a way that exhibits
threshold behaviour: There is a sharp division between regions in which
the answer is “almost always yes” and those of “almost always no”.
Our work suggests that progress in space management and planning will arise
from an integrated approach; combining purely space issues with restrictions
representing an aggregated or abstracted version of key constraints such as
timetabling or location, and
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 130-143 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Journal of Operational Research Society |
Volume | 60 |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2009 |