In this assignment, we explore some of the different concepts in network analysis using ArcGIS Online. Several network-related scenarios were presented and the general procedures on how each problem was solved, as well as the discussions of the results, are outlined on the succeeding sections.
ArcGIS WebAppBuilder was also used to create the maps with live charts and elements which enables viewers to interact with the results dynamically.
For the first task, I chose the location of my dormitory, Paris Lodron Studentenheim as the starting point of the route. This dormitory is located along Schallmooser Haupstrauße, just a few kilometers away from the city center. Upon checking the Tourismus Salzburg GmbH website, I learned that there are quite a lot of interesting museums around the city that can be visited by individuals like me who are new in Salzburg. So for this map, I chose some of these museums as POIs for the walking and driving route.
Selected museums are as follows:
To create the route for walking, the Plan Route tool in ArcGIS Online was used and Walking Time was selected as the "Travel mode for the route". I assumed that I won't be spending much time in each museum so I only put 30 minutes for the "Time spent at each stop" parameter.
In this walking route, the sequence of museum stops is outlined below:
Mozart Residence → Haus der Natur → Toy Museum → Museum of Modern Art Salzburg Mönchsberg → Salzburg Museum
For the walking route, the total time is 218.35 minutes wherein, 150 minutes was spent for the five stops while 68.35 minutes was spent travelling the 5.7-km route from the home location to museums and then going back home again.
To generate the driving route, all the parameters were retained except for the mode of travel, wherein I chose the Drive Time option this time.
The route generated using Driving Time as the travel mode for the route is slightly different compared to the walking route. First, the sequence of the stops has changed as follows:
Museum of Modern Art Salzburg Mönchsberg → Toy Museum → Haus der Natur → Salzburg Museum → Mozart Residence
While the total travel time has definitely become shorter, the route length becomes longer because the route generated follows only the roads where a vehicle can pass through as compared to the walking route where even footpaths and trails were considered for the route.
Using drive time as the mode of travel, the travel time is 29.86 minutes while route distance is 10.42 km.
For the second task, we are asked to find the three closest Glass Waste Containers from the chosen home location. To do this, the glass waste container layer was added on the map first buy searching in the Group contents.
To find the closest facilities, the Find Nearest tool in ArcGIS Online was used. I assumed that I will be walking towards the facilities from my home so I specified Walking Time as the travel mode and my home location as the starting point.
Looking at the result, the nearest facility is just in front of my home location while the other two are just within 10 minutes away. The following collection facilities are located in:
I decided to create a simple web app called Closest Glass Waste Container Finder where user can choose a location on the map and all the glass waste container facilities within a specific distance will be displayed on the map as well.
Users can pick a location by clicking a specific point on the map. The sidebar on the right will display the number of nearest facilities starting from those that are within 200 meters from the chosen location. User can use the slider to change the search distance up to 5 kms, which relatively covers all the glass waste containers if the chosen point is within the city center.
Users can also view the relative distance of these facilities from the starting point. There is an option to use route distance in calculating the distance but I did not choose that one in this example.
The third task looks into how one can efficiently plan routes for a fleet of vehicles, which in this case are waste collection trucks. The idea is to create an optimized route for all the waste collection facilities using three collection trucks.
The Plan Routes tool was used to identify the stops and routes of the three vehicles. The starting point used was the location of the Siggerwiesen waste treatment plant in Aupoint 15, Bergheim.
For this problem, the travel mode used was Trucking Time instead of the regular Driving Time since there might be roads that trucks are not allowed to pass through. Using this option too allows us to have a more realistic result since this mode considers the legal truck speed limit, as well as various rules applicable to heavy trucks.
I assumed that the collection will be done during the morning so I specified the start time around 8:30 am. Depending on the traffic patterns in the area, setting a different time may affect the generated routes if there are roads that tend to be busy at a particular time of day.
Since there are 133 waste collection facilities, the maximum number of stops assigned for a vehicle was 45. This way, the number of stops will be evenly distributed among the three trucks. Also, I assumed that each truck will only spend about two minutes for each stop.
Looking at the result, the first and second routes contain 45 stops each while the third one has only 43. I can say that I generated an optimized route since there is a small difference in travel time, as well as the total route length among the three routes.
Route 1: Total Time: 218.28 minutes Length: 61.16 km
Route 2: Total Time: 218.03 minutes Length: 55.81 km
Route 3: Total Time: 204.10 minutes Length: 57.44 km
For the final task, we are asked to create service areas for different locations in terms of travel time. I chose some of the hospitals listed in the Doctors and Hospitals section on the university's website including:
To find the service areas of these hospitals, the Create Drive Time Areas tool was used. It was specified that the travel mode to be used should be Walking Time to obtain the areas that area within 4, 8, and 10 minutes. In the direction of travel parameter, I chose 'towards the facility' option as I think it is more important to know the service area from different locations going to the hospital from a normal citizen's perspective instead of the other way around although that could also be helpful say for ambulance dispatch and determining reachability for emergency response.
Because of the fact that I did not put any barriers for the polygon generation, the generated service area still includes some parts of the Salzach River. Generally, you may need to specify barriers such as road repairs, detours, water bodies, etc. so the result will be more realistic as well.
