Vehicle Routing Problem?

[RossZelenske]

Hello everyone,

I am a Virginia Tech student working on a project involving sampling collection of pollution levels around the Town of Blacksburg (VA). In order to collect this data, we are planning to use a bicycle to travel across some of the town's roads. We are looking to use GIS to determine the best 1 hour round trip route to use that will allow us to sample a mixture of land use types (and other criteria), to achieve the most accurate picture of what these pollution levels would look like across the town (while avoiding having to sample the entire town). With that being said, we are wondering what the best extension tool would be to do this. It appears that the Vehicle Routing Problem may be the best option, with Location Allocation as another possible option.

Any assistance on this would be helpful.

Ross

[BenGrod]

I think the Network Analyst Extension may be your best bet. The school should have a license, run through the help and do a few tutorials. The key is going to be what Network Dataset you use, Navteq has a great network dataset that is multimodal (route using different modes of transportation car, bus, walk, etc) or you can also use StreetMap Premium ​but neither of these are free. However, schools often have licenses so ask your instructor/professor what Street network dataset the school has licenses for and go with that. Good luck!