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calculating driving distances

DANIELWEBSTER

hello,

i am new to arcgis and am trying to calculate the driving distances between 2 sets of xy coordinates.

i have a data set with 5 columns--id, x-origin, y-origin, x-destination, y-destination--and would like to create a new showing the driving distance between the respective xy coordinates.

i was told that this might be possible using network analyst but have never worked with that tool.

any help would be appreciated!

Daniel

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SalmanAhmed

"The network dataset has no edge elements. It may be unbuilt." I have this same problem. And the status in the properties says it is unbuilt. But when I try to build it I get another error saying 'ND cannot be built. Network object evaluation error'. What mistake am I doing could please guess? I have a normal street network of a city with edge elements. N Im building this network dataset from a shapefile and not in a feature dataset.

RobertGarrity

Thanks for the screenshots, Jenna. It sounds like you have the naming issue figured out.

I see you're using hierarchy, which means you shouldn't run out of memory. But I guess that could happen if your computer doesn't have much RAM. How much does your machine have?

Here are a couple more things to try:
1. Before loading your stops, open the route layer's Layer Properties dialog box, click the Network Locations tab, check on Exclude Restricted Portions of the Network, then load the stops. Stops will only load on roads that are traversable. Finally, solve.

2. If you still get an error, open the Layer Properties dialog box again, click the Analysis Settings tab, then uncheck the restrictions (Oneway and Turn Restrictions), then re-solve. This should make any unreachable locations reachable.

If 2 doesn't work, I think I'll need some data from you, or if you can't send data, maybe you can tell me the counties where you're performing the analysis. This way I could create several random points in the three counties and perhaps figure out where problem areas may be. I'll send you a private message through the forums and include my email address.

TIGER data isn't really designed for routing, so it would be best to hold off on that for a bit and try to get the streetmap network to work for you.

Thanks,
Robert

JennaKhan

Thanks Robert! That is very helpful. I'm attaching the requested screenshots.

The naming part makes sense now - I found the name field it's using. One file didn't originally have a 'Name' field, so I think that's when I saw 'Location #'.

I've pretty much been using the default settings. The only thing I've been adding to the Route Properties are the Time and Length Accumulation Attributes under the Accumulation tab.

I thought about the fact that the Network Dataset is so large and wondered if it would help if I create a new network dataset from the TIGER All Lines files only for the 5 counties where the points lie. Would that help with the memory issue?

Thank you so much for all of your help!
Jenna

ForRobert.doc

RobertGarrity

Hello again,

I would ask you to send me some data, but I know this is patient-related, so instead, could you send me three screenshots?

1. For the naming issue, send a screenshot of the Load Locations dialog box as it is when you're loading some stops. I think what's happening is a field from your input data is being mapped to a field on your stops. When the input record has a null value for that field, Network Analyst auto-generates a name that is Location 1, Location 2, ..., Location x. When the input record has a value, that value is added to the Name field of the Stops. I'm guessing the input field contains the 4- and 5-digit numbers you're seeing.

2. A screenshot of the Network analyst window showing the paired stops to verify the stops are loaded properly. To do this, set up a partial problem by loading 10 or 50 pairs of stops only--not all 700+. Expand the Stops category, but don't worry about showing all the stops; a sample is fine.

3. The third screenshot would be of the Layer Properties dialog box--Specifically, the Analysis tab of the route layer. I'm particularly interested in whether you are using hierarchy or not. Although you can just tell me that, it would be good to see what other settings are enabled and disabled.

From what you said about solve working for 10 pairs, failing for the 700+ pairs, then failing thereafter, it sounds like this is a memory issue. However, I would expect you to get a memory warning. What happens when you do this:
Shut down ArcMap (clear out the memory).
Open it back up, and solve 25 pairs.
If that works, solve for 50 pairs.
If that works, solve for 75 pairs.
...
If you run out of memory at 700+ pairs, you'll get failures after that unless the route layer is removed or ArcGIS closed.

If memory is the issue, it may be running out of memory if you're solving without hierarchy and one or more stops is on a portion of the network that is disconnected from the rest of the network. (Imagine, for instance, a stop in a gated community and restriction is turned on that blocks the entrance to that community.) In that scenario, the solver will end up searching every edge in the network. Given you're using the North America data, memory would almost certainly be a problem. If hierarchy is disabled, enable it and solve again. You're less likely to run out of memory when using hierarchy since it search far fewer roads than an 'exact' solve.

Thanks,
Robert

JennaKhan

Hi again Robert,

It worked once this morning when I tried it with only 10 pairs. After that, I tried 758 pairs and it failed. Then I tried 50, 25, 10 and even 9 - all failed. I don't know what happened between the one time it worked and the subsequent times - I used the same settings.

1. I set the options to 'All Messages' and I still don't receive any error messages other than 'solve failed'

2. It does work if I interactively add 2 points, group them by name and solve, but I have 758 pairs and not much time to complete it that way.

One thing I've noticed is that sometimes when I load the locations the names for the stops are either 'Location' with a number (starting at 1) or they are just numbers - sometimes 4 digit, other times 5 with a decimal in it. When that happens, the pairs will have the same number, but the map appears to place everything correctly and their symbol shows them as 'located'. Is it a problem when the load and locate that way?

Thanks!
Jenna

RobertGarrity

Hmm... Well, here are a couple things to try:

1. Turn on all messages. To do that, on the Network Analyst toolbar, click the Network Analyst drop-down menu and choose Options. On the General tab, turn on All Messages. Re-solve the problem and see if you get any more information than simply 'solve failed'.

2. What happens when you create a new route layer, interactively add two stops, group the stops into a single route, and solve? By 'interactively add', I mean use the Create Network Location tool on the Network Analyst toolbar and click on the map. To group the stops into one route, open the Stops attribute table and calculate the RouteName field. (You could calc the field to "Route1".) Then solve. Does that work?

JennaKhan

Thanks Robert!

I was using the default search tolerance and those that had addresses were located. I actually ended up getting rid of the pairs that didn't have both an origin and a destination. A lot of them did not have a location for the destination and those were the ones that were unlocated - I just thought those routes would be 0 or unsolved, but that the other pairs would solve. So now all of the stops are located and when I solve I don't get any of the previous 'unlocated' errors, but it still fails. I don't get any error message now, I just see 'solve failed' in the network analyst sidebar at the bottom. I had 758 pairs of locations and thought that maybe there were too many, so I tried with 10 pairs of locations and it still doesn't work, no message other than 'solve failed'. I'm using files that were geocoded using the 10.0 North American Geocode Service (ArcGIS Online) and using the StreetMap Pro 2007 streets network - I'm not sure if that answers your last question. Any other thoughts Robert?

Thank you!
Jenna

RobertGarrity

Hi Jenna,

When you load the stops, are you loading using geometry or network location fields? (This option is at the bottom of the Load Locations dialog box.) If so, what is the Search Tolerance you are using?

Also, zoom into an unlocated stop and use the Measure tool on the Tools toolbar to see how far the stop is from the nearest street. What's the distance? If you're using geometry to load locations and the point is farther than the search tolerance, the stop won't locate.

The default search tolerance is 5000 meters, so if you're using the default, it's unlikely the stops are not going to be located. But it's a good place to start looking.

If you're using network location fields to load, were the network location fields calculated using the same network dataset you're using to create the route layer?

Robert

JennaKhan

If I understand your objective correctly, you want to find the driving distance from one specific origin to one specific destination, not from all origins to all destinations. This is important because, at first glance, you might think the OD cost matrix solver would work best, but actually it's probably best to do the following using a route layer instead:

1. On your dataset, create a new field named RouteName and calculate its value so that it is the same value as your current ID field.
2. Add your origins to ArcMap as a layer. (Tip: File > Add Data > Add XY Data.) Only specify the origin X and Y fields.
3. Rename the output layer that appears in the table of contents to something like Origins.
4. Add your destinations to ArcMap as a layer. Only specify the destination X and Y fields.
5. Rename the output layer to Destinations.
6. Make a Route layer using the Network Analyst toolbar (or a GP tool).
7. Load the Origins layer into the Stops class. (Tip: Right-click Stops in the Network Analyst window and choose Load Locations.) Make sure the RouteName field is mapped to the RouteName field you created.
8. Load the Destinations layer into the Stops class using the same method.
9. Solve

By specifying the route name when loading, the stops are grouped together and routes are calculated only for the stops that are in the same group, which in your case is limited to a single origin and destination pair.

You can open, and optionally export, the Routes class, which contains the calculated shortest-path driving distances. The Name field values will match the values of your original IDs.

I'm having problems with this. I'm able to load the origins and destinations into the Stops and assign the Route Name for each. My stops then show up paired by the Route Name values, which seems correct - I want to know the driving distances for paths between specific pairs of points. When I solve, the solve fails and give the errors "Warning: Location "Location 1" in "Stops" is unlocated." for a lot of locations. These are locations of where women live and the mammography screening facility they attended. I don't have the facility for some women, so I figured those would be unsolved, but it doesn't solve any routes for those that have both locations. When I loaded origins and destinations into OD Cost Matrix, it solved everything, but was obviously more than I wanted since it did all routes, not the specific route per woman. Any suggestions are appreciated!

JaySandhu

If you solve a large closest facility problem in ArcMap and then write it out as an MXD it will take a lot of space. Is there a reason you need to save this in a map document? Can you export out the lines layer to a feature class (shape file or geodatabase) and then add it to the ArcMap TOC and save that map document? that way the data is not saved in the map document. You could also export the entire CF layer to disk to save a copy as well.

Jay Sandhu

MattWootton

Hi Jay,

I also have an extremely large MXD (1.6GB!) that I'm trying to work with. I've got routes worked out for 80 facilities and 76,000 incidents over a national network dataset using the closest facilty geoprocess. Just wondering if you've established some form of 'best practices' for working with rather large MXDs? Your help would be much appreciated. Arc 10, SP3, XP.

Matt

JaySandhu

Glad to know you have it working. As far as file size, it may depend on how many route layers you have in ArcMap. Each will require it's own memory for that many stops/routes. One thing you can do is instead of Save, do a Save As to a new file name and that will most likley be smaller as it will get rid of any unnecessary information being stored in that map document.

As far as "observation" it was more of a helpful suggestion that when it comes to defending your thesis, you do not want to admit ignorance about any aspect of your work!

Jay Sandhu, Ph.D. 🙂

SWETABYAHUT

Thanks Jay Sandhu, yes that solved the problem! Most of the errors related to "one-way" restrictions on the Route Layer which was easily corrected. However, I had a tough time trying to save results and had to repeat the procedure several times before I could manage to do it. The file size increased from 180MB to about 550MB. I have about 70,000 stops, and more than 30,000 routes. Is that normal?

I agree, ideally I should have mastered this extension before I made this an important part of my dissertation. Its an important, but small part.... hoping to learn along the way, and these ArcGIS forums are very useful! Thanks again for the help!

Regards, Sweta

JaySandhu

>1. Warning: Location "Location 11" in "Stops" is on a non-traversable network element position.

This means that your location is located on an edge which is restrictred due to some restriction like oneway. So check the properties of your route layer and see what restrictions are on. Can some of them be turned off? If not, then on the network locations tab of your route layer, at the bottom, there is a property called "Exclude restricted portions of the network". Check on this property. Now you will have to "re-locate" your stops. So in the NAWindow, right-click on the Stops and choose Re-calculate Location Fields and choose All (or select only the problem stops before and relocate only the selected ones).

>2. Warning: No route for "9901" from location "Location 9902" to location "Location 47260"

This is becase there is no path between these two locations. Most likely this could be due to restrictions that are on in the data or there is disconnected pieces in the network. So you will have to investigate that be turning off ALL restrictions and seeing if you can find a path or not.

>I am new to Network Analysis and this forms a critical part of my doctoral thesis!

Just an observation: If you choose to use a tool that is critical to the thesis then you need to be a master at it before you make it a critical part....but it is probably too late for that now.

Jay Sandhu

SWETABYAHUT

If I understand your objective correctly, you want to find the driving distance from one specific origin to one specific destination, not from all origins to all destinations. This is important because, at first glance, you might think the OD cost matrix solver would work best, but actually it's probably best to do the following using a route layer instead:

1. On your dataset, create a new field named RouteName and calculate its value so that it is the same value as your current ID field.
2. Add your origins to ArcMap as a layer. (Tip: File > Add Data > Add XY Data.) Only specify the origin X and Y fields.
3. Rename the output layer that appears in the table of contents to something like Origins.
4. Add your destinations to ArcMap as a layer. Only specify the destination X and Y fields.
5. Rename the output layer to Destinations.
6. Make a Route layer using the Network Analyst toolbar (or a GP tool).
7. Load the Origins layer into the Stops class. (Tip: Right-click Stops in the Network Analyst window and choose Load Locations.) Make sure the RouteName field is mapped to the RouteName field you created.
8. Load the Destinations layer into the Stops class using the same method.
9. Solve

By specifying the route name when loading, the stops are grouped together and routes are calculated only for the stops that are in the same group, which in your case is limited to a single origin and destination pair.

You can open, and optionally export, the Routes class, which contains the calculated shortest-path driving distances. The Name field values will match the values of your original IDs.

Hi, thank you Robert Garrity and Jay Sandhu for step-by-step guidance to this query. I followed it, but for some reason only some of the O-D pairs are solved. My data set has more than 35,000 trips, or pairs or OD points, but only 5700 were solved. I get two kinds of error warnings, the samples are below:
1. Warning: Location "Location 11" in "Stops" is on a non-traversable network element position.
2. Warning: No route for "9901" from location "Location 9902" to location "Location 47260"

What is want to do is find the shortest route between each pair of O-D points on each of these trips. The data has been obtained from a travel survey using GPS that gives X,Y coordinates for each origin and each destination for each trip.

I think in my case, all the street center-lines have been identified as edges, however, all OD points not falling directly on the edges are showing up as errors and not able to snap to closest edge/street.

Any help will be appreciated! I am new to Network Analysis and this forms a critical part of my doctoral thesis!

Thanks, Sweta

JaySandhu

I think it may not work with one million patients. I will suggest that you split it into 10 solves of 100,000 patients each, write out the results and combine them at the end.

Couple of other things you can do is to run ArcGIS on a windows 64 bit machine with 4 GB RAM. On a 32 bit OS, the maximum memory it can use is 2 GB but on a 64 bit OS it can use 4 GB.

If you have multiple cores, like a quad core machine, you can use the GP background processing to run more than one solve simultaneously to speed it up. For example, run two solves of 100,000 each.

Jay Sandhu

XiaominRuan

If you only need to know the location and distance then use the OD Cost Matrix solver. But if you need the actual route to be shown then continue to use Closest Facility.

To solve your problem of finding ONE closest hospital, set a cutoff distance or time, say 60 miles or 60 minutes.
(i.e.. what ever is reasonable in your case).
Turn off hierarchy.
Set number of facilities to find as 1.
Solve.

it should work with 50,000 incidents and 10,000 facilities.
If it does not, can you report back to how far it gets or what error message is reported.

Also, If you are using these points over and over again, I will suggest that you run the GP tool, Calculate Locations on your hospitals and patients so that you can load them by network locations (not geometry) into a new network layer.

Jay Sandhu

Now I understand more about what you are talking. Really helpful! Thanks. I just hope it will work with more than million patients in one SOLVE.

Have a nice weekend!

Xiaomin

JaySandhu

If you only need to know the location and distance then use the OD Cost Matrix solver. But if you need the actual route to be shown then continue to use Closest Facility.

To solve your problem of finding ONE closest hospital, set a cutoff distance or time, say 60 miles or 60 minutes.
(i.e.. what ever is reasonable in your case).
Turn off hierarchy.
Set number of facilities to find as 1.
Solve.

it should work with 50,000 incidents and 10,000 facilities.
If it does not, can you report back to how far it gets or what error message is reported.

Also, If you are using these points over and over again, I will suggest that you run the GP tool, Calculate Locations on your hospitals and patients so that you can load them by network locations (not geometry) into a new network layer.

Jay Sandhu

XiaominRuan

As the message says, the problem is with the network dataset and not with the route layer.
If the network has no edges perhaps it needs to be "built". Also if it has no edges then the
stops you loaded have no where to snap to and will need to be re-loaded or their locations
re-calculated once the edges are there.

You mention that you created and build the network. When you add the network dataset to
ArcMap, say NO to adding the source features. Now, does anything draw? Or if you bring
up the properties of the network dataset, what does it say on it's status?

Jay Sandhu

Jay thank you very much for the reply! I figured out how to it finally. I used "New Closest Facility" Function to load origins and destinations separately and then all routes were calculated and showed up. I thought the previous issue I had is, my dataset is too large. I have more than 50,000 patients point data which I wanted to connect with their respective closest of more than 10,000 health care facilities. Once I selected a small sample of both and tried, there is no problem at all.

Thank you so much for the answer. It helped a lot. I just wonder, do you happen to have any experience about how to play with large dataset? Like in my case, is there a way that I can do the route calculation for all 50,000 patients at once?

Regards,

Xiaomin

JaySandhu

"The network dataset has no edge elements. It may be unbuilt."

As the message says, the problem is with the network dataset and not with the route layer.
If the network has no edges perhaps it needs to be "built". Also if it has no edges then the
stops you loaded have no where to snap to and will need to be re-loaded or their locations
re-calculated once the edges are there.

You mention that you created and build the network. When you add the network dataset to
ArcMap, say NO to adding the source features. Now, does anything draw? Or if you bring
up the properties of the network dataset, what does it say on it's status?

Jay Sandhu

XiaominRuan

If I understand your objective correctly, you want to find the driving distance from one specific origin to one specific destination, not from all origins to all destinations. This is important because, at first glance, you might think the OD cost matrix solver would work best, but actually it's probably best to do the following using a route layer instead:

1. On your dataset, create a new field named RouteName and calculate its value so that it is the same value as your current ID field.
2. Add your origins to ArcMap as a layer. (Tip: File > Add Data > Add XY Data.) Only specify the origin X and Y fields.
3. Rename the output layer that appears in the table of contents to something like Origins.
4. Add your destinations to ArcMap as a layer. Only specify the destination X and Y fields.
5. Rename the output layer to Destinations.
6. Make a Route layer using the Network Analyst toolbar (or a GP tool).
7. Load the Origins layer into the Stops class. (Tip: Right-click Stops in the Network Analyst window and choose Load Locations.) Make sure the RouteName field is mapped to the RouteName field you created.
8. Load the Destinations layer into the Stops class using the same method.
9. Solve

By specifying the route name when loading, the stops are grouped together and routes are calculated only for the stops that are in the same group, which in your case is limited to a single origin and destination pair.

You can open, and optionally export, the Routes class, which contains the calculated shortest-path driving distances. The Name field values will match the values of your original IDs.

Thanks a lot for the step by step description. I'm also new to Network Analyst but I did follow the same steps trying to calculate the driving distance from a patients layer to their closest doctor's locations. I can populate the stops exactly as you described, but looks my route layer didn't get populated because in Network Analysts window, the number of routes is 0.

I used a single statewide road shapefile to create my new network dataset and then built a network dataset that contains three features, the source road layer, the edge layer, and the junction layer.

After that, I read in origins and destinations data from an Excel table exactly as you described.

After read in point XY data, I clicked to create a new route, so the Network Analyst window is populated with bunch of layers, but with all layers including the stops layer and the route layer empty.

I then loaded the origins and destinations layer to stops, click on "solve" on the Network Analyst Toolbar that is beside the "Directions Window". Then ArcINFO 10 gave me an error saying "The network dataset has no edge elements. It may be unbuilt."

I guess I might did something wrong when creating the new route but not sure. I would highly appreciate if you or anybody could give a more detailed step by step instruction about what's wrong in my steps.

Xiaomin

Geosptial & Population Studies, UNM

JoeBorgione

All this can be done with network analyst, but you'll need to take some time to learn how to use the extension. There is an ESRI tutorial available and you can search the on line help for specific information.

SWETABYAHUT

Hi all, I have a similar query. I need to calculate the shortest network distance (driving distance) between a set of Origins and a set of destinations from a travel survey. I need to also built in constraints like one-way, no U-turns except on dead ends, speed limits, etc. Please let me know how this can be done. I have more than 10,000 trips for which I need to calculate driving distances. This is part of my dissertation research.

Any help and tips would be appreciated!

Thanks, Sweta Byahut

RobertGarrity

If I understand your objective correctly, you want to find the driving distance from one specific origin to one specific destination, not from all origins to all destinations. This is important because, at first glance, you might think the OD cost matrix solver would work best, but actually it's probably best to do the following using a route layer instead:

1. On your dataset, create a new field named RouteName and calculate its value so that it is the same value as your current ID field.
2. Add your origins to ArcMap as a layer. (Tip: File > Add Data > Add XY Data.) Only specify the origin X and Y fields.
3. Rename the output layer that appears in the table of contents to something like Origins.
4. Add your destinations to ArcMap as a layer. Only specify the destination X and Y fields.
5. Rename the output layer to Destinations.
6. Make a Route layer using the Network Analyst toolbar (or a GP tool).
7. Load the Origins layer into the Stops class. (Tip: Right-click Stops in the Network Analyst window and choose Load Locations.) Make sure the RouteName field is mapped to the RouteName field you created.
8. Load the Destinations layer into the Stops class using the same method.
9. Solve

By specifying the route name when loading, the stops are grouped together and routes are calculated only for the stops that are in the same group, which in your case is limited to a single origin and destination pair.

You can open, and optionally export, the Routes class, which contains the calculated shortest-path driving distances. The Name field values will match the values of your original IDs.

RamB

Hi,

Yes this is very easy, there is also a tutorial with installation and also in the help file. Look here
http://www.esri.com/flashmedia/na_drivedirect.swf

If you dont find the files, let me know. I will explain further.

Sriram

hello,

i am new to arcgis and am trying to calculate the driving distances between 2 sets of xy coordinates.

i have a data set with 5 columns--id, x-origin, y-origin, x-destination, y-destination--and would like to create a new showing the driving distance between the respective xy coordinates.

i was told that this might be possible using network analyst but have never worked with that tool.

any help would be appreciated!

Daniel

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