topic Re: 'Reversing' Service Area calculation in ArcGIS Network Analyst Questions

'Reversing' Service Area calculation

SrikanthSivashankaran — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:02:21 GMT

Hello,

My apologies in advance if I'm getting the terminology wrong or missing something obvious.

I'm interested in assessing how well a facility is situated within its service district by getting a rough calculation of a proxy for the potential cost of transportation to that facility

(in my project, facilities = schools and service area = school districts)

I know how to calculate, given a distance, a service area for each facility; I'm interested in reversing the inputs. Is there a way to calculate the distance required to cover a service area, given the facility's location and its polygonal service district?

If I were to neglect the road network, I would try to find a way calculate the "average" distance from all points in each polygon to the facility location (using integrals?), but I don't know how to do that either.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide,

Dub

Re: 'Reversing' Service Area calculation

JoeBorgione — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:23:10 GMT

Hello,

My apologies in advance if I'm getting the terminology wrong or missing something obvious.

I'm interested in assessing how well a facility is situated within its service district by getting a rough calculation of a proxy for the potential cost of transportation to that facility

(in my project, facilities = schools and service area = school districts)

I know how to calculate, given a distance, a service area for each facility; I'm interested in reversing the inputs. Is there a way to calculate the distance required to cover a service area, given the facility's location and its polygonal service district?

If I were to neglect the road network, I would try to find a way calculate the "average" distance from all points in each polygon to the facility location (using integrals?), but I don't know how to do that either.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide,

Dub

Have you tried drawing lines instead of polygons for a service district? There may be a way to truncate them at the edge of the district ploygon.

Not sure how 'neglecting' the network in a Network Analysis application would work for you...

Re: 'Reversing' Service Area calculation

SrikanthSivashankaran — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:11:08 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion Joe - will try it and report back.

I didn't realize service area could generate polylines as well. Thanks ...