topic Network analyst - VRP solution's route(s) with measure unit as time in ArcGIS Network Analyst Questions

Network analyst - VRP solution's route(s) with measure unit as time

kevinmunro — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:44:36 GMT

Does anyone have experience with retrieving time as the unit of measure (PolyLine M) to either the solution's routes or an export of the same?

It seems that significant effort is made in the VRP solve process to optimally sequence stops, and time order data is available to the stops but valuable en-route time data is not retained. Perhaps the V.10 temporal data enhancements cover this!!

Using ArcInfo 9.3 + Network Analyst extension

Re: Network analyst - VRP solution's route(s) with measure unit as time

NaAn — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:59:28 GMT

There is a tool to obtain M value along route:

To obtain the en-route measure value, you need to solve VRP layer with the output shape type of �??True shape with measure.�?�

In ArcMap, click on Customize -> Toolbars -> Customize�?� to open the Customize dialogue. Open Commands Tab, select �??Linear Referencing�?� from the list and find the �??Identify Route Locations�?� in the Commands list. Drag and Drop �??Identify Route Locations�?� button into ArcMap.

In ArcMap, click �??Identify Route Locations�?� button to enable it, and then click on any point along the route shape, the corresponding measure information will be returned in the result dialog.

Please let me know whether this answered your question.

Thanks.

Anna

Re: Network analyst - VRP solution's route(s) with measure unit as time

kevinmunro — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:55:56 GMT

In V 9.3 the default output type is true shape (including measures), however the output measures I am getting are NaN (or not a number). I will replicate the analysis on V.10 later this week, and post the results to the forum.

In a perfect world the user would be permitted to set the output unit type (time in seconds, minutes, or distance) to be applied to the measure.:D

Re: Network analyst - VRP solution's route(s) with measure unit as time

kevinmunro — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:26:43 GMT

Things are looking up.:)

Before I got to the point of testing the functionality in V.10 I tested the following hypothesis successfully in V.9.3.

Since my native network data source was in a Geographic Coordinate System (GCS) I was suspicious of the Measure resolution (tolerance) of the parent Feature Dataset. So I projected the source data to build the network into a Projected Coordinate System - UTM, rebuilt the network, conducted a simple VRP analysis. After exporting the Route solution I found that the resulting measure values were available, and the values seem to be representative of time in minutes.

The results while pleasing still leave me scratching my head wondering if the measure units are minutes, why wouldn't they be available in a GCS?