B6

Research Abstracts on Spatial Information Science
CSIS DAYS 2006

School Attendance Areas and GIS
Fatemeh AHMADI NEJAD MASOULEH
Graduate Student at the Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences,Division of Spatial Information Science, University of Tsukuba
Email: <f_ahmadinejad2003@yahoo.com>(1) Introduction ： Like other Iranian cities, schoolboards have not created official attendance areas forschools at any education level of Rasht City tospatially allocate students to schools within theirlocal areas. In the absence of guidance fromeducation authorities, parents are the main decision
makers in choosing schools for their children. Thisis also the case for the selection of public female
junior high or PFJH schools in Rasht City. Although
this might invoke images of freedom under thecurrent system, many female students go to schooloutside their local areas. In the case of the Iraniancity of Rasht, this parental choice based system ofschool selection has resulted in commutes that are
longer than necessary for the PFJH students who
journey on foot or on the public buses, city taxis,
and shared rental taxies and mini-buses thatcomprise the city’s public and private transport.
Despite the relative ease of getting to school indeveloped countries, a daily journey to the city in
Iran is a heavy burden on students and their families.
Without the convenience of a free school bus or
carpooling, most students have to travel longer
distances than necessary on foot from their homes tocatch a taxi or rented private vehicles along mainroutes. Not only are such means of conveyanceadding to the considerable cost families of sending
their children to the schools in Rasht, they are alsoless safe. Daily travel in taxis or rented buses alsomeans higher exposure to the risk of injury or evendeath. Another consequence of lengthy journeys tocity schools on foot and rented vehicles included
decreased time and energy for homework or otheractivities at home.
(2) Purpose： In order to reduce the problems thatstudents face daily in their commutes to schools inIran, replacement the parental choice of school
selection with student enrolment within a certain
school attendance area was the aim of this research.
It proposed this can be accomplished byintroduction of attendance areas that reduce both thetime and distance of commutes to schools andallocate students to the nearest schools on foot asmuch as possible.
(3) Methodology： Multiplicatively weighted Voronoi
diagram (MWVD) was the method for theconstruction of attendance areas given its utility indemarcating spaces so that all journeys within them

are closest to a chosen school. A GIS-based
specialist packaged called WVD18 (Mu Lan, 2004)
was applied for the construction of diagrams thatwould represent the attendance areas for each school.
Each diagram was then constructed in relation to thenumber of students to represent the weighted factor.
Following this approach, larger schools tended tohave larger enrolment areas and vice versa forsmaller schools. Once the attendance areas werecompleted, they were analyzed spatially using
Arc/Info, software of the Geographical Information
System (GIS). In order to examine if the delimited
boundaries minimized travel times and distances forstudents at schools, five studied PFJH schools wereanalyzed for more detailed study.
(4) Conclusion ： The research concluded that theprojected school attendance areas can result inshorter and more convenient commutes on foot.
This can also nearly eliminate the need to travel byvehicle for the overwhelming majority of students
and make their journeys more convenient.

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City Border
Major Roads# PFJH School (School from Shift 2)
School Areas
Aban
AmupurAnvar
Asghari
Azadi
Azarbni
Balalzadeh
Enghelab
Esmat
EtminanFelestin
Ghods
Lotfi
MohseniNarjesRahzahra
Sadigheh Kobra
TohidValiasr

00.5

1

2 Kilometers

Figure 1: Proposed attendance areas for Rasht’s
PFJHschools of Shift 2.

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