Drive Time Area from Multiple Points

Question

I want to create a drive time area that gives me a polygon that shows places that can be reached within a given time.  I teach a high school engineering course and we do so sustainable urban planning.

Example:  I want to pick a place to locate a new neighborhood.  It needs to be within 20mins of the fire dept, police dept, local hospital, and grocery store.  How would I create a polygon showing the area the would satisfy the requirements.

I have done this already, but I think you folks will know a better way.  My steps are:

* Create an individual drive time area for each location
* Use the overlay analysis to start only showing the intersection of pairs of drive time areas until I only have one polygon left.

Any links to examples or lessons would be helpful

AmandaRing · Answer

My recommendation would be to do the following:

* Create a drive time area for each input layer
* Instead of using overlay tools, you can use the Derive New Locations tool to find the locations where all the polygons you created in step 1 intersect, all in just one tool run.
So you would run something like:

There's more customization available too - say for example, you wanted locations that were 20 mins from grocery stores and hospitals, and 20 mins from either a fire station or a police station, you could format the expressions in the tool to be something like this:

You can find out more about the Derive New Locations tool here
Some example lessons that might be relevant include Evaluate locations for mixed-use development  and this cougar habitat case study

Hope this helps 😊

DavidPike · Answer

I would probably do exactly the same, seems a sound logic.