Best way to account for overlap when calculating total distance of routes travelled

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02-25-2022 10:16 AM
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Stella-MarisAgu
New Contributor III

I'm Looking for ideas of how to calculate total route distance. There are thousand of trips and some go through the same road and i want to exclude the overlaps. so that each distance covered is not calculated multiple times when there are more than one trip that takes that road. I want the distance to be calculated once. I have the data lines showing the route on top of each other at the moment. at the end i need a total distance in meters. Thanks for your input.

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DavidPike
MVP Frequent Contributor

If that section of road is never to be counted again in any trip, then I would assume you just merge all the routes into a single feature (if this is not already the case), dissolve Dissolve (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation to remove overlapping segments, then sum the lengths of the remaining polylines.

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DavidPike
MVP Frequent Contributor

Shape_Length seems a strange value, what coordinate system is the data in?  Probably use Calculate Geometry Attributes (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation and specify the correct coordinate system and length units.  You could probably use LENGTH_GEODESIC however I would personally prefer to ensure the original feature is in the correct coordinate system initially.

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DavidPike
MVP Frequent Contributor

If that section of road is never to be counted again in any trip, then I would assume you just merge all the routes into a single feature (if this is not already the case), dissolve Dissolve (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation to remove overlapping segments, then sum the lengths of the remaining polylines.

Stella-MarisAgu
New Contributor III

Thank You David for your reply! From your explanation it seems straightforward but just wanted to confirm I'm on the right path. I attached a screenshot of how the data is in the attribute. all the routes is in one feature. I ran the dissolve tool but they lines were not split at the junctions where they meet. They are still on top of each other. Can you help me?

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DavidPike
MVP Frequent Contributor

No problem, the picture certainly helps.  What arguments (options) did you specify in the tool? The defaults should combine the lines into a single feature if they intersect (touch).  I'd ensure you've not specified any 'Dissolve Fields' or checked 'Unsplit Lines' options - simply 'Input feature class' and 'output feature class' then run the tool.

Stella-MarisAgu
New Contributor III

Hi David. Thanks for the quick reply. I ran the tool as specified and got only one attribute. so if i calculate geometry that should be the length for all roads? 

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DavidPike
MVP Frequent Contributor

Shape_Length seems a strange value, what coordinate system is the data in?  Probably use Calculate Geometry Attributes (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation and specify the correct coordinate system and length units.  You could probably use LENGTH_GEODESIC however I would personally prefer to ensure the original feature is in the correct coordinate system initially.

Stella-MarisAgu
New Contributor III

I really appreciate your help David. Yes it was in WGS 1984. I projected to the right coordinate system and used calculate geometry and it looks this way now. Thank you for all your help.

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