creating shortest route using line segment layer as network locations - HELP

[McKendreJay]

Hello,

I'm currently using Arc10.2.1 and new to the network analyst tool. I'm trying to create a truck route that begins at one location on a county street grid and ends up in the same place, following a feature class of line segments of guard rails throughout the whole county - we need to create the most efficient path possible.

I understand the concept of network analysis objects and network attributes, but need to use these line segments as such. However, the only line-based network analysis objects that can be defined as network locations are line and polygon barriers. I was successful in using my guardrail feature class to create the shortest route that avoids each guardrail, but not one that follows it. When I attempt to use the segments as "stop" input features it tells me that it is an incorrect input.

I thought of creating centroids from each segment to use as stops, but that provides little information for the truck drivers to know exactly where along the roadway the guardrails are located.

This seems like it would be a common problem, yet I haven't been able to find anything on it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[m_neer]

Maybe I'm not grasping the full weight of your quandary here, but couldn�??t a person just use those guardrails as "Line�?� barriers against your network , or even thinking outside the box here, use
the guard rail lines and buffer them out say 5ft on a side and then load them buffers as �??Polygon�?� barriers against the network to extract said final answer?  How about a adding a field to your table that identifies those routes that contain your guard rails as a "Higher Priority Rating" such as 1 and all other segments as a 0 lower priority rating - then make your impedence against those rankings?

[RyanStillman]

You might get useful results with the Create" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#... Random Points or Feature" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html... Vertices to Points tools to get numerous points along each road segment which you can then direct the Network Analyst to see all of those points as "Stops", I think.

Vertices to Points is simpler to use but can give you far too many points in many cases. If so, you can guide the Create Random Points tool using the Number of Points per Segment parameter and the Minimum Distance Between Points parameters to more-or-less place points along the lines at defined interval.

To do this, you will need to add a few fields to your lines' attribute tables: A Length field (you could use the shape length, I think?) and a second field that will give the number of points to be added for that segment. To do this, divide the Length field by the regular interval distance you want the points to be placed at(remember to convert units so they are the same). Then, when you run the tool, you set the Number of Points per Segment as the second added field, and enter the interval you used into the Minimum Distance Between Points.

I have not personally tried this method in Network Analyst, but it should work fairly well as long as you can set your turns up well enough.