[GIS] Calculating walking distances on network in ArcGIS Network Analyst

arcgis-10.2arcgis-desktopdistancenetwork-analyst

I would like to calculate distances on network between demand nodes (points) and transportation network (line) in ArcGIS.

I basically calculated the central features of my building data (1,5M feaures) in considered district zones (85 zones). Now i have 85 central node. I also the highway network.

I know i can calculate the distance if i use the euclidean distance tool. However, for representing the real walking distance, i need to find the real walking distances on the network.

What i want to do is calculate these demand node points' rectilinear distances on network instead of euclidean distances. I need only one distance value for a demand center to a highway line.

What should i do?

Best Answer

Using your network data you need to build a network dataset by using network analyst tool in ArcGIS. Network dataset will include all rules regarding your network (e.g. speed limits, turn limits, height limits, walking only routes, bycyle only routes etc.). After you've build this dataset you can use Network Analyst's OD Cost Matrix tool to calculate distances from Origin Locations to Destination Locations.

A complete tutorial to build network dataset and run analysis can be found here: http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/pdf/network-analyst-tutorial.pdf

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An advanced method that will work on all levels of ArcMap (must be 10.1 or above though) would be to read the geometry of each point and project it on the fly to compute the distance between the features. This is a good read about how the Near tool works.

The following code does this (all you'll need to do is find a good PCS for your dataset):

import arcpy
from math import hypot    

shp = "path to shapefile"
#Create a spatial reference object for the PCS...change as needed
spatref = arcpy.SpatialReference(26915) #UTM 15N

#Get coordinates of each feature (in PCS) and store it as a list of tuples.
coord = [x[0] for x in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(shp, "SHAPE@XY",
                                             spatial_reference=spatref)]

#Compute distances between features.
distances = [hypot(coord[i+1][0]-coord[i][0],
                   coord[i+1][1]-coord[i][1]) for i,_ in enumerate(coord[:-1])]

#Insert a 0 in the first position since it has nothing to measure against
distances.insert(0, 0)

#Add field to store distances
arcpy.AddField_management(shp, "DIST", "DOUBLE")

#Write distances back to shapefile.
with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(shp, "DIST") as rows:
    for j,row in enumerate(rows):
        row[0] = distances[j]
        rows.updateRow(row)

Best Answer

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