Network Distance of Students to School

[PatrickDavis]

Hello,

I am trying to get the network distance from a large number of student locations to their school.  I have about 40k students and about 85 school locations.  I would like something like the OD Cost Matrix, but I don't want every single combination - e.g. I only want the distances to the school they are attending (school # can be found in the student attribute table and the facility information).  Is there a way to link the Origins and Destinations by a common field (School # in this example)?

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks,
Patrick Davis

[JaySandhu]

You  can do this with the Route solver where you can load the Origin and Destination pairs with a common ID mapped to the ROUTENAME property. It has been answered many times in the forums. Search on ROUTENAME, e.g., here:
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/60480-question-about-creating-routes-in-network-analysis?highlight=...

Jay Sandhu

[Tom_AndersEngebakken]

Hei

Where do i find the routesolver and the routename?

Is it in new route or OD cost matrix etc?

Tom Anders

[JaySandhu]

It is in the Route solver (not OD). More help here:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/#/Route_analysis/004700000045000000/

Jay Sandhu

[LynnVanderWielen]

I am performing an identical analysis and I am trying to follow the instructions you have indicated. I am very new to ESRI products so, please bear with my trivial questions.

I opened the Network Analysis toolbar, but I cannot click New Route, as it is greyed out. What do I need to do to work this through?

Thank you.

[JaySandhu]

Best thing is to do a couple of tutorials:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/#/About_the_ArcGIS_Network_Analyst_extension_tutorial/...

The most likely reason the solvers are grayed out are these two:
1. You did not enable the extension. Use the Customize drop down and then pick Extensions and make sure Network Analyst is turned on.
2. You have not added a network dataset to the ArcMap table of contents. Without any street network data you can not perform any analysis. If you do not have any data, you can look at using the free streetmap data that comes on the Data and Maps dvd.

Jay Sandhu

[LynnVanderWielen]

Thank you for the response Jay!

I checked to be sure the Network Analyst Extension was checked and I downloaded the North America Major Roads file from http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=06e71cbbefab401fb99b6c2bb5139487.

However, the solver is still grayed. Did I download a file that is not a network dataset? If so, can you point me to a dataset that can serve for this purpose?

Thank you again for your time!

Best,

Lynn

[JaySandhu]

The Data and Maps DVD content is available online by first logging into the customer care portal at customers.esri.com
You can download the streetmap network data from there. Or if you have the DVD handy you can copy it from there.

Jay Sandhu

[StevenGraf1]

Sounds like you need to create a Network Dataset first.   If you don't have this loaded into the map document, the network analyst tools will be greyed out.