Generate Service Area based on Addresses

[WilliamKimrey]

Hello all,

I'm wondering if this is even possible.  I currently have 4 service areas for trash pickup based on the day of the week.  These are based on Addresses and were assigned by hand originally.  Now, one day is significantly larger than the others so I'm trying to figure out the best way to assign new service areas.

Is there a way to generate services areas based on address points so that the addresses are evenly distrubuted, or at least close?

If not by using service area, is there another way that would be more suited to this goal?

Thanks,
Will

[JaySandhu]

The network analyst service area solver is designed to find the areas within a certain distance or travel time from a starting facility location. It is not designed to balance territories based on some demand value at points. What you appear to want to solve is a clustering problem where each cluster has a certain size.

Depending on how many points you have, you could try using the VRP or the Location-Allocation tools to come up with subsets. The VRP does have a capacity per vehicle but it is not designed to solve the every house on a street garbage pick up problem. The Location-Allocation can give you a fixed number of facilities but is not designed to look at the size of each cluster.

So, No, service area solver is not the right tool. The other two or a combination may help solve your problem.

If the number of the locations is not too large, you could also look at the following ArcScripts to help make balanced clusters:
http://resources.esri.com/geoprocessing/index.cfm?fa=codeGalleryDetails&scriptID=16044

Regards.

Jay Sandhu