Buffer for Driving Distances

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to solve a problem asking what percentage of people live within a one hour drive of the state's capital. I have my road networks set up and ready to use (in both shape file and network formats). My problem is in dealing with ArcGIS.

I can't seem to find the right tool to use for my task. I've looked through the buffer tools, but all of the options seem to be based on aerial distances. I've looked through the network tools, but nothing seems to be exactly what I'm looking for.

If anybody has experience working with this, please help me out. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

TimothyHales · Answer

I've moved your post into the Analysis space. You will get a much better answer here as the GeoNet Help is intended for community help and feedback. I have also added in a few additional tags. You can see more on the community structure, and what topics are under each space from the following documents:

GeoNet Community Structure‌

ArcGIS Discussion Forums Migration Strategy‌

Thanks!

Timothy

JoeBorgione · Answer

The network analysis extension provides this functionality: New Service Area.  You need to have a 'drive-time' variable set up in your network evaluators.  A good attribute to have in your streets feature class is speed limit; with a little math you can figure out the time it takes to traverse a given segment.

[edit moments later; Richard sent his as I was typing mine...]

RichardFairhurst · Answer

You are basically describing a Network Analyst Service Area.  You have to have the Network Analyst extension to perform this analysis and your network needs to be a Network Dataset as defined by that extension.