How to create bus routable network based on road routable network

[ThaoTruong]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on bus routes travel time analysis. I'm thinking of a bus routable network and using network analyst tool to run service area analysis based on impedance travel time. However, the only available routable network is road. Bus route feature class also available. My questions are:

1) Can we create bus routable network based on road routable network? They should share the same geometry, but how can we set the driving direction, turn, restriction for bus routs based on road routable network as each bus route will have a specific route?

2) Has anyone have any suggestion to do this travel time for bus network?
Many thanks in advance.

Truong

[ThaoTruong]

Hi everyone,

To continue with my previous post...

I've tried to select road routable networks which has the same geometry with bus routes, then exported them for a bus routable network. But it didn't work. Error: no edge is traverse.

Since I already have bus route feature class and small study area, I'm thinking of using Network analyst, New Route to create bus routes based on the existing bus route feature class. According to exersice 3, if I add Stops along a known bus route, then run Solve, it'll create a bus route. However, if I need to create about 10 new bus routes, how can I do it quickly? Then when it done, would it be a bus routable network? And I can use it for calculate travel time and generate service area?

Thank heaps.
Truong

[MelanieSummers]

Hi Thao,

Is there a reason you do not want to use the roads network dataset?

You can easily create multiple routes if you have a stops feature class with a RouteID field, when you load the stops you can select the RouteID field for the RouteName property, this will force those stops to be associated with a specific route.

You may also want to consider having an Attr_Time field, this will help to model the time the bus spends at each stop.

Check here for more information about Route Analysis.

Best,
Melanie S.

[ThaoTruong]

Hi Melanie,

Thank you very much for your respond.

I solved my issue by assuming that the existing bus route feature class is good enough for creating bus routable network in term of connectivity. I think it's ok because what I only wanted the length of each road segment when they are broken at their intersec or overlap points. So I use split tool to get the length of each segment. Then I calculated travel time for each segment based on average bus speed. Then created network dataset and generate service area.

I haven't consider the of use bus stops for this analysis at this stage as I don't know how to use them directly from the existing bus stop feature class. Another thing is, bus stops are not touch the bus route. So if I consider to use bus stop then I have to manually add each bus stop (quite many). Any ideas?

Thank heaps.
Thao

[MelindaMorang]

Hello everyone.  I just wanted to let you know about a new prototype tool from Esri's Network Analyst team which allows you to add GTFS public transit data directly to a network dataset.  You can use this network dataset with the Network Analyst tools to run time-aware analyses that incorporate the transit schedules.
You can download the toolset and instructions here:
http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=0fa52a75d9ba4abcad6b88bb6285fae1
Please do not hesitate to contact me at mmorang@esri.com with questions or comments about this toolset.