The Unfinished WorldWilbert Limson

The Islands of Access · Public-sector geospatial decision support

Decision support for a frontier province

On an island province, the nearest school or clinic on a map may not be reachable at all.

Role
Decision-science contributor on geospatial analysis for healthcare and education siting Owner-reported
Relationship
Contributor
Where
Maluku Utara (North Maluku), Indonesia — Ternate and Halmahera

Decision-support analysis · illustrations are conceptual redraws

The situation

North Maluku is an island province in eastern Indonesia. People live across Ternate, Halmahera and many smaller islands, where a facility that looks close on a map can sit across open water or behind a mountain road.

The work supported public-sector decisions about where healthcare and education services should go. That makes it a question about whether people can reach a service, not only how far away it is.

People in the picture

  • Provincial decision-makers
  • Residents who rely on schools and clinics

What I did

My part was the decision-science layer of the geospatial work: modelling access along real routes, and laying out siting options so the people responsible could compare them.

  • Geospatial analysis
  • Road-network routing
  • Travel-time catchments
  • Decision-support design

Decisions that shaped it

  1. Measure access along roads, not straight lines

    A straight line across a bay is not a route. Access is traced along the road network, so a facility behind a ridge or across water is not counted as “near”.

    Owner-reported

  2. Keep catchments on their own island

    Catchments do not cross open water: a village is only matched to facilities it can reach over land on its own island.

    Owner-reported

  3. Show alternatives and their trade-offs

    Rather than one “optimal” site, candidate options are compared on coverage, cost and who is left out. The model recommends; accountable people decide.

    Owner-reported

What was made

villageclinicstraight line ≠ routethe road that existsnearfartherfarthestconceptual · no data
Travel-time mapConceptual illustrationOwner-reportedThe straight line from village to clinic crosses water. The route that exists follows the coast road, and the catchment stops at the shoreline.
beforeafter a hypothetical road linkillustrative scenario · no benefit is quantified
Scenario lensConceptual illustrationOwner-reportedThe same island before and after a hypothetical road link: the reachable zone changes shape, not just size.
candidate sites — compared, not decidedreachcostequityABmodel's rank 1Cdecided byillustrative · bars carry no data
Decision tableConceptual illustrationOwner-reportedCandidate sites compared side by side on coverage, cost and equity. The model ranks; a person signs.

Results

Not claimed yet. Results appear here only once they are documented — until then, this page shows what was designed, built or proposed.

Limits and honest caveats

  • Deployment and adoption are not claimed on this page.
  • Healthcare and education siting are kept as separate analyses; their findings are not merged here.

In the Living Mind

This world feeds these lessons: