Driving Every Single Street in a City using Network Analyst Extension

[RobertBeckerGIS]

Hello!

Background on the issue I am trying to solve: Looking to drive every single street in a city as efficiently as possible. 

Solution: At the Esri UC 2022, some of the network analyst folks recommended the following workaround. 

1. Create points at every intersection

2. Import those points as the "stops" 

3. Run the route as "Driving time" and "Find Best". This will result in driving every single street.

Problem: 

1. First problem is that you can only load 150 "Stops" so I am somewhat limited in the route I am trying to plan. Certainly I can plan multiple routes and this is a doable workaround. 

2. The MAIN problem is I am running into this issue where the route is not completing itself. Do I need to set the start and stop as the same point? How can I achieve this? See the screenshot below of a small example. Everything is right except for the fact that it is missing partial of the road (red arrow). I am assuming there is a workaround or perhaps I have some parameter set wrong. 

The goal is to load 100-150 stops and drive every single street and the whole street. I greatly appreciate any thoughts or ideas!

[JaySandhu]

Generally I recommend to generate mid points on every edge NOT intersections. And also set a curb approach right property and you can set u-turns at dead ends only.  That way streets are travelled to the end.

That said, covering every street efficiently requires a different approach then using the TSP solver that ArcGIS provides but you may get good results. 

Also are you using local street network data or online service? There are limits on the stops you can pass to the online service not for local data, but there are practical limits on how much you can optimize in one solve.

BTW, what is your use case for travelling every road in the city?

Jay Sandhu 

[RobertBeckerGIS]

Thanks Jay! I will try the ideas you mentioned and will be looking into making our own network dataset whereas right now I am using the online service. Our use case is we are driving a mobile lidar vehicle and want to route plan as efficiently as possible to reduce overall costs and have a logical way of going about. 

[MelindaMorang]

FYI, the 150-stop limit is for analyses using the ArcGIS Online services as the network data source.  There is no limit if you use your own network dataset.   You could create your own using street centerline data or purchase Streetmap Premium if you want to avoid the limit.

(Of course, at some point you may run into memory or computational limits if the number of stops is too large.)

[RobertBeckerGIS]

Thank you so much for the information Melinda! I will look into creating our own network dataset since we do have the centerline data. 

[MelindaMorang]

We have a downloadable set of Tasks for ArcGIS Pro that can help you make a network dataset with your street centerlines.  Start here: https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/transportation/create-a-local-government-networ...

[JaySandhu]

With your own centerlines, you can use the Feature To Point tool with the Inside option to create mid points.

Feature To Point (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Jay Sandhu