Latest Contributions by MelindaMorang

Hi Liam.  Unfortunately, the Network Analyst solvers don't have a way of assigning an added cost based on the previous edge traversed.  When the solver calculates the cost on an edge or junction, it doesn't know what the previous edge or junction was.  So you won't be able to do this automatically. You could potentially use a turn feature class to add your costs, but you would have to set up the turns manually for each intersection where you want the added cost. Can you describe more fully what you are trying to do?  What's the goal of this part of your project?  Maybe we can find a better way to do it so we can avoid this problem. ... View more

Thanks for the kind words, Jeremiah.  I'm glad to see that you were able to come up with a really nice solution for your project! We here at Esri are working to develop a much more advanced and useful set of tools for public transit analysis.  I am always interested in hearing from users working in this area to learn about their work, the types of analyses they want to perform, and the challenges they have with our current software.  Feel free to send me a private message if you want to talk further about public transit analyses.  You are also always welcome to contact me with complaints or suggestions about Network Analyst tools or documentation in general. Thanks, and good luck with your transit projects! ... View more

Unfortunately, there is not really a way to do what you are trying to do.  This is a difficult problem. As long as the impedance on both bus routes is exactly the same, the Network Analyst Route solver will somewhat arbitrarily choose which one to take.  We see this sometimes in cases where there are overlapping roads or loop-shaped roads where you could go either way around the loop.  However, if the impedances are exactly the same and the route segments are going to the exact same place, then the route generated will end up in the same place and show the same travel time, so the results will be "correct".  Unfortunately, if you are trying to generate directions, then you will see a difference in which bus it says to take. I wish I had a better answer. ... View more

You can do this by assigning values to the RouteName field in the Stops sublayer.  Each pair of stops needs its own, unique RouteName.  To make this easier to set up, I recommend doing this: - Add two fields to your input bus stop layer. - Populate one of these fields with the name of the stop. - Populate the other field with the name of the next stop. - Use Load Locations for the Route Stops sublayer TWICE so all your bus stops are put in twice.  Use field mapping each time to map the new fields you created to RouteName.  The first time you Load Locations, map it to the first field you created.  The second time, map it to the second field.  That way you end up with each pair of stops having a unique RouteName to themselves.  The solver will then solve a separate route between each pair of stops. ... View more

Please post the error message.  That will help us figure out what's wrong. ... View more

Hi Liam. When setting up your network dataset, you will need to set up some cost (impedance) attributes that determine how the network calculates the cost of each edge in the network when solving routes or other analyses. See http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#/Understanding_network_attributes/00470000000m000000/. These cost attributes are calculated using evaluators.  You have many options (including code) for constructing an evaluator. See http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00470000000n000000 for more information. For each attribute in your network, you can give it a different evaluator for the from-to direction and the to-from direction.  In other words, the cost of the same network element can be different if it's being traversed in different directions.  You will need to know the direction of digitization of your road to make sure you know which direction is which, but it should be easy enough for you to give each road a different cost if it's going uphill or downhill. ... View more

Hi Liam.  You've got yourself a challenging problem! Since you have elevation data, you can use the Interpolate Shape tool (http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00q90000006m000000) to add z-elevation to the roads feature class in your network.  You could then calculate an average or maximum slope for each line feature and use this, as well as the 3D length, to calculate a new new cost attribute in your network dataset.  I'm not sure what advice to give you about how to construct your cost attribute.  Consider that each road segment may have some uphill and some downhill parts, some steep parts and some not-so-steep parts.  The average slope of the road feature might be zero even if it contains both a steep uphill part and a steep downhill part. Additionally, please note that you will likely encounter problems anywhere in your road network where you have bridges or tunnels, since your elevation data probably only accounts for the elevation at ground level.  If your data already had Z-levels for handling bridges and tunnels, you might be able to find a way to fudge the connectivity to make these work.  You might have to manually fix each one. ... View more

This sounds like a python question, so I have moved it to the python forum.  I hope you find your answer! ... View more

Hi Elizabeth.  Unfortunately, there is currently no way for the polygons to automatically keep a field from Facilities.  You have to first create the polygons and then do a join with Facilities using the Facility ID column in polygons and the Object ID column in Facilities. ... View more

Hi David. Load Locations (the wizard tool) and Add Locations (the geoprocessing tool available through ArcToolbox) technically do the same thing.  You can use either within ArcMap.  Load Locations is accessed by right-clicking input classes in the Network Analyst Window or by dragging and dropping layers into the Network Analyst window.  Add Locations is accessed from ArcToolbox.  If you are seeking to automate a workflow through model builder or python, you will need to use Add Locations. You might notice some things (for instance the "Exclude Restricted Portions of the Network" button) in Add Locations that don't appear in the Load Locations dialog.  Some options apply to the Network Analyst layer as a whole and can be set in the layer properties instead of in the Load Locations dialog. Please let me know if you have any further specific questions about how to do something in either Add Locations or Load Locations. ... View more

Hi James.  So sorry for your difficulties.  Can you attach a screenshot showing your issue?  It's very difficult to diagnose your problem without actually seeing it. ... View more

Hi Eric.  We are aware of the issue with NACampus Directions you mentioned where each step generates walking directions and then summarizes them with "Drive X mi."  We're working to get it fixed, but I'm not sure of the current status of this issue.  For now, please accept our apologies for this problem, and good luck with your project. ... View more

What you want is the OD Cost Matrix solver.  It does exactly what you describe. You can read about OD Cost Matrix analysis here: http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00470000004r000000 If you're new to Network Analyst, you might benefit from some of the tutorials here: http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00470000005r000000 ... View more

The Network Analyst tools require points as input.  To find the network distance from a lake or river, you would want to use the OD cost matrix solver, but you can't load a polygon or line feature class for Origins or Destinations.  They have to be points.  You can convert your polygons or lines to point features by finding the centroids of those features, by using the features' nodes, by finding the intersecting points of your streets features (if they intersect at all), or by manually digitizing river/lake access points along the roads. ... View more