Creating a "bikeshed" map using Network Analysis

Question

Hi Esri Community,

I'm envisioning a service area map showing the bike ride times from 15, 30, and 45 minutes away to a given location in San Francisco. I want to make this using Network Analyst and incorporate SFMTA bike route data and I would add the travel mode "Bike Time".

I'm not sure how to integrate the bike network data when building the network dataset for this and there are many parameters that I'm uncertain about. I don't even know if the bike route data has the attributes necessary for creating a network dataset.

I was thinking about simplifying the analysis by just creating the "Bike Time" travel mode, using the ArcGIS Pro integrated network dataset, and making it the average speed of someone commuting by bike, but then I got to thinking about how this likely oversimplifies the results because bikers will avoid hills and streets that don't have designated bike lanes (the bike network data).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to approach this?

The end goal is a bikeshed map (service area) that shows the areas in SF that are within a certain bike time to the given destination.

This example below is of a result I created using an interactive map tool. I want to recreate this using network analyst.

Please let me know what you think. Thank you!

Aidan_Williams_SFRPD · Answer

Thanks Melinda, and thank you all for these suggestions! That's great that you're researching a bike analysis tool like this. It would be great to have a similar tutorial for creating a 'Bike Network Model' similar to the Transit Model that you can make in ArcGIS Pro using GTFS data. I was able to create a 'Transit Ride Times' map for San Francisco by using this workflow - Create and use a network dataset with public transit data - ArcGIS Pro Tutorial

I'll start by adding the suggested attributes to the 'Streets' data I'll be using to create the bike network dataset. For adding elevation data, I'll try using a DEM and the 'Add Surface Information' tool to assign a slope value to each of the road segments and then hopefully I can configure the slope restriction in the network dataset.

I'll let everyone know if it works.

Melinda Morang · Answer

Hello Aidan (and others).  This is Melinda from Esri's Network Analyst development team.

The other replies here have some good suggestions and, on a technical level Network Analyst should be capable of doing the type of modeling you want if you can configure your data and the network dataset attributes in a way that makes sense to you.  Some combination of a cost attribute (to model travel time based on slope and other factors) and restriction attributes (to prohibit or deter travel on streets that are unsuitable or undesirable for cyclists) can be configured.  Often times people try to calculate a Level of Traffic Stress for each street, and this could be used in configuring restrictions, even different restrictions depending on the type of cyclist.

We unfortunately don't have any out-of-the-box templates or tutorials to assist with this, but that's something I'm interested in creating.  I'm actually in the process of researching this and trying to determine what the best practice is.  Aidan and anyone else reading this: If you are trying to create or have created a network dataset for modeling travel by bicycle and would be willing to answer some questions or be interviewed to help me move this project forward, please reach out to me at mmorang@esri.com.  Thank you!

BobBooth1 · Answer

You might be able to assign streets travel cost based on slope (given a DEM and a derived slope raster).

https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/how-to-calculate-the-slope-of-a-line-feature-across-a-s-000025428

Probably would want to also assign high travel cost to inaccessible/dangerous routes (freeways).

I saw this, which might be interesting.

https://sites.tufts.edu/marydavis/files/2015/09/Ian-Thistle-MA-Thesis.pdf

Also this:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1b4ad355268c456a956f0c2bcb1874e4