topic Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 16:26:27 GMT

Hi all,

Our City has a two hour time limit for parking in residential areas for non-permitted vehicles. We trying to quantify how often non-permitted vehicles move from one block to another to avoid being ticketed. We are using data from our Parking Enforcement's license plate readers to determine this. It contains the license plate, lat/long data, geocoded address info, time stamp, and whether or not the vehicle is permitted. I have selected the points that fall in the enforced areas and created a definition query to show only non-permitted vehicles. When a license plate is read at the same location, the lat/long information is slightly different, but the address attribute tends to be the same. What is the most efficient way to find occurrences of the same license plate appearing at multiple addresses?

Thanks!
Matt

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

DavidPike — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 17:19:21 GMT

This would be the badger - Find Identical (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation
Input fields - license plate, address

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

KimberlyGarbade — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 17:36:27 GMT

You can use the frequency geoprocessing tool:

Original Data:

Frequency Table generated by tool:

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 17:46:47 GMT

Hmmm.. I'm getting empty outputs. I've tried only using Plate_value as a field as well as other variants. I know for a fact that there are multiple occurrances. Also, Would this only output pionts that are identical in both Plate_value and Address? I'm looking for ones that are identical in Plate-Value and different in Address

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

JayantaPoddar — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 17:57:20 GMT

One way to look at it.

If the points have attributes of Vehicle No. (License Plate) and the address (say Block No.), you could dissolve the layer based on these two fields.

The resulting rows should be unique to the combination of License Plate and Block No.

*In case the address field isn't available, you could use spatial join to join the corresponding field from Block boundary to points layer.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 18:05:17 GMT

Hmmm... I'm getting an empty output with this one as well. But that looks like what I'm looking for.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

KimberlyGarbade — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 18:17:08 GMT

Hmmm.... I didn't do anything "fancy" (below). Can you share a screen shot of your data's table as an example? Also, what are the field definitions of "Plate_value" and "Address"?

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 18:29:50 GMT

Plate_value and Address are both text fields. Is that what you're asking? I'm getting the same error message when I try the "Find Identical" tool (see above) so maybe there's a problem with the feature class?

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

KimberlyGarbade — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 18:57:08 GMT

That is indeed what I was asking.

That plate value field is quite the value... let me test with a GUID like number and very verbose addresses... Still works for me (see below).

Have you limited your selected features somehow.. you mentioned a definition query (I also applied one to my test and it had not effect on it working, but maybe yours returns zero records or something odd like that). You could try export your data to a new file GDB and then running the tool against that data using the same file GDB to hold the generated stats table.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

DavidPike — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 19:40:56 GMT

ah of course.

I think this is crying out for Python if you have any experience with it? It could also be done with 2 separate field calculations with code blocks if necessary.

The Frequency tool isn't appropriate either I don't believe.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 21:31:59 GMT

I'd call myself a beginner with Python, but I'm trying to improve that skill set. I'm not sure where I would start with this task.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

KimberlyGarbade — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 22:16:45 GMT

New approach... You can uses Arcade.

I added a text field (MultipleAddressMessage) to my table and populated it like this using Calculate field using an Arcade expression:

Using this Arcade code:

var License = $feature.LongPlate //get all records having the plate in this record var test = Filter(FeatureSetByName($datastore,"TestPoints",['LongPlate','Address'],true),"LongPlate = @License") //Use GroupBy to get the stats you want - return type is another feature set. //returns a feature set having an Address column and a NumberOfAddresses column var result = GroupBy(test,'Address',{name: 'NumberOfAddresses',expression: '1', statistic: 'COUNT'}) //Check for null Feature Set If(IsEmpty(first(result))){ //if null return 'not parked' return 'not parked' //should never happen but have to test for null } else { for(var instance in result){ //Step through GroupBy returned feature set and derive the values you want var TotalInstances = TotalInstances + instance.NumberOfAddresses var NumUniqueAddresses = NumUniqueAddresses + 1 } return "Plate number: " + first(test).LongPlate + " appeared at " + text(NumUniqueAddresses) + " unique address a total of " + text(TotalInstances) + " times." }

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 17:35:50 GMT

Thanks, that looks promising, but my arcade skills are below average. For my data, I'm substituting your "LongPlate" with my "Plate_value" and your "TestPoints" with my "LPR_Data519_520_NoPermit". I'm getting an error on line 6, my code is pasted below

var License = $feature.Plate_value //get all records having the plate in this record var test = Filter(FeatureSetByName($datastore,"LPR_Data519_520_NoPermit",['Plate_value','Address'],true),"Plate_value = @License") //Use GroupBy to get the stats you want - return type is another feature set. //returns a feature set having an Address column and a NumberOfAddresses column var result = GroupBy(test,'Address',{name: 'NumberOfAddresses',expression: '1', statistic: 'COUNT'}) //Check for null Feature Set If(IsEmpty(first(result))){ //if null return 'not parked' return 'not parked' //should never happen but have to test for null } else { for(var instance in result){ //Step through GroupBy returned feature set and derive the values you want var TotalInstances = TotalInstances + instance.NumberOfAddresses var NumUniqueAddresses = NumUniqueAddresses + 1 } return "Plate number: " + first(test).Plate_Value + " appeared at " + text(NumUniqueAddresses) + " unique address a total of " + text(TotalInstances) + " times." }

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

KimberlyGarbade — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 18:52:47 GMT

I don't see an error in the code....I guess you could try substituting 'Address' for '1' after the expression: keyword in line 6... but that seems like a long shot.

Is your data coming from portal or AGOL, or straight from a geodatabase? What version of ArcGIS Pro are you using? Are you sure your license plate number is a text field?

If the data is coming straight from a database and your pro version is 2.5 or newer and your GUID looking ID is indeed in text format, then I'm think there might be something "off" in you data.

What that something is I don't know, but I don't believe in coincidences (much) and it seems like a coincidence that no matter the potential solution, it gets to a certain point and fails... each time with a new message.

You could try exporting out a very small subset of your data (like ten records) and testing the process against that. If it works or it doesn't its a clue. If it works, its a clue that one or more records in your input data have something in them that is disrupting ArcGIS. If it doesn't try substituting some "simpler" plate numbers (something like "ABD123") in the your test data and trying again... or simpler address ("1234 ABC ST W")... if that fails I'm at a complete loss.

Sorry for sending you down rabbit holes, but that's all I can think of.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 22:31:31 GMT

OK, I'm running 2.3.1 so it sounds like that's the most likely problem here. I'll start by badgering our IT department to install the latest update. Once I get updated, I'll take another crack at it.

Thanks for your help!

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

KimberlyGarbade — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:27:10 GMT

I think that clears up the Arcade error. I don't think GroupBy works in versions per 2.5.

Before you upgrade though, if your using ArcGIS enterprise, make sure your upgraded version will work with you enterprise version and database versions. I.E. updating has to be planned.

Re: Find points with the same attribute in multiple locations

MattCotterill — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 15:08:57 GMT

OK, that makes sense. I don't know what version of enterprise we're running but it may help explain why IT hasn't been able to upgrade me to the latest version of Pro.

Thanks!