'Reversing' Service Area calculation

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07-13-2011 06:02 AM
SrikanthSivashankaran
New Contributor
Hello,

My apologies in advance if I'm getting the terminology wrong or missing something obvious.

I'm interested in assessing how well a facility is situated within its service district by getting a rough calculation of a proxy for the potential cost of transportation to that facility

(in my project, facilities = schools and service area = school districts)

I know how to calculate, given a distance, a service area for each facility; I'm interested in reversing the inputs.  Is there a way to calculate the distance required to cover a service area, given the facility's location and its polygonal service district?

If I were to neglect the road network, I would try to find a way calculate the "average" distance from all points in each polygon to the facility location (using integrals?), but I don't know how to do that either.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide,

Dub
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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus
Hello,

My apologies in advance if I'm getting the terminology wrong or missing something obvious.

I'm interested in assessing how well a facility is situated within its service district by getting a rough calculation of a proxy for the potential cost of transportation to that facility

(in my project, facilities = schools and service area = school districts)

I know how to calculate, given a distance, a service area for each facility; I'm interested in reversing the inputs.  Is there a way to calculate the distance required to cover a service area, given the facility's location and its polygonal service district?

If I were to neglect the road network, I would try to find a way calculate the "average" distance from all points in each polygon to the facility location (using integrals?), but I don't know how to do that either.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide,

Dub


Have you tried drawing lines instead of polygons for a service district?  There may be a way to truncate them at the edge of the district ploygon.

Not sure how 'neglecting' the network in a  Network Analysis application would work for you...
That should just about do it....
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SrikanthSivashankaran
New Contributor
Thanks for the suggestion Joe - will try it and report back.

I didn't realize service area could generate polylines as well.  Thanks ...
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