What's new in the Network Analyst toolbox
Several new tools and a Server toolset are included in the Network Analyst toolbox at 10.1. In all, five tools were added. Two tools were added to support new live-traffic capabilities. Two more were added to make it easier to set up and publish network analysis services for service areas and vehicle routing problems. And one tool, Copy Traversed Source Features, was added to make it easy to extract the source features of the network dataset that were traversed in a network analysis.
Toolset changes
- Server toolset: This new toolset contains tools to facilitate the creation of web services for solving vehicle routing problems and generating service areas. It also contains tools for downloading live traffic data from the web services of data providers.
New tools
Toolset | Tool | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Server toolset (New) | Creates a service area network analysis layer, sets the analysis properties, and solves the analysis. This tool is ideal for setting up a service area geoprocessing service on the web. A network service area is a region that encompasses all streets that can be accessed within a given distance or travel time from one or more facilities. | |
Creates a vehicle routing problem (VRP) network analysis layer, sets the analysis properties, and solves the analysis, which is ideal for setting up a VRP web service. A vehicle routing problem analysis layer finds the best routes for a fleet of vehicles. | ||
Downloads live traffic data from a web service and stores it in a dynamic traffic format (DTF) file, which is a file that network datasets can read for live-traffic analysis and display. | ||
Creates a point feature class containing live traffic-incident data from a web service. Traffic incidents include events such as accidents and road construction. | ||
| Network Analysis toolset | Creates two feature classes and a table, which together contain information about the edges, junctions, and turns that are traversed while solving a network analysis layer. |
Improved tools
Tool | Improvement |
|---|---|
|
Now you have the option to solve service areas using a network hierarchy. | |
Solve capacitated location-allocation problems using a new problem type: Maximize Capacitated Coverage. Now facilities have a Capacity property to limit how much demand can be allocated to facilities. This makes it possible to solve computationally complex problems, such as choosing the best sites for new schools or hospitals while considering, among other constraints, their student or patient capacity. You can also use capacitated location-allocation to simply allocate demand to existing facilities without choosing new ones. | |
At ArcGIS 10, only the route and vehicle routing problem analysis layers supported time-dependent solves. At version 10.1, all the other network analysis layers have been enhanced to support traffic data as well. | |
| Solve | Simplifying geometries can reduce the number of vertices and make it faster to transfer and draw geographic data. This is especially useful when working in a server environment. With 10.1, you can solve your network analysis layers and choose to simplify the output. |
Directions can now be generated for a language that you choose. |
Deprecated Tools
Upgrade Dataset was introduced at ArcGIS 10.1 as a single replacement for the Upgrade Network tool and other similar upgrade tools that were tailored for specific dataset types. If you need to upgrade a network dataset to the latest ArcGIS version and take advantage of new functionality, use Upgrade Dataset. (You won't have to re-create any existing scripts or models that reference Upgrade Network; they will continue to work.)