Route calculation without using address

Sunny

Hello all,

Have anyone ever done a path calculation without using the physical address? I tried to do this with common apps out there, but all of them require a physical address of the start and endpoints. But for my case, I want to get a sort of navigation that can cover all of the drivable roads in the town.

For example, is there a way to select a certain part of the map and calculate the efficient path/route to cover all of the roads? It should minimize driving/walking time, distance, and reduce any overlap.

I think Google did something similar when they were mapping Google Street view. I think they did not use hundreds and thousands of physical addresses to calculate the route.

Thank you,

JaySandhu

ArcGIS allows you to route through point locations. It does not need addresses. You can place a point on the mid point on each road and optimize using the Find Best Order (Travelling Salesman). There is a GP tool called Feature To Point that can take as input a road lines feature class and output a point on each road using the Inside option.

Feature To Point (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

 

Note that Travelling Salesman optimization works best on a discrete set of points not so good on a connected set of streets. For that you need a different set of optimization techniques called Chinese Postman solver, typically used for snow plow or residential garbage pickup.

There is a lot of documentation on the Route and the Vehicle Routing Problem Solver in the network analyst that you should get familiar with to use them efficiently.

Jay Sandhu