Drive Time (Business Analyst)

Summary

Creates a new feature class of trade areas, based on drive time or driving distance, around store point features.

Learn more about how Drive Time works

Illustration

Usage

• The spatial reference of the output feature class will be the same as the store layer.

• Drive-time distances should be limited to 90 minutes. Realistic analyses beyond this threshold should be run using static rings.

• The drive time center input feature class must be point features.

• In most cases, the drive time center input feature layer will be a Business Analyst store layer.

• Valid numeric distances must be used when defining drive-time values. Negative distances cannot be used.

• Selecting ALL in Sites To Use will create rings for each point feature in the ring centers (stores) input feature class.

• The projection of the input ring centers feature class will be copied to the output feature class.

• Donut rings create output polygons that are bands. For example, if three radii are entered with values of 1, 2, and 3 miles, three output bands would be created with 0–1-, 1–3-, and 3–5-minute drive time trade areas.

• Set the measure units to minutes if you want to create drive time trade areas.

• Displaying traversed streets with street attribute fields attached can be useful when labeling feature classes.

• To compensate for traffic patterns in drive-time analyses, adjust driving distances accordingly. For example, if you are looking at a time of day when traffic patterns are heavy (such as rush hour) and the drive time takes twice as long, then you can halve the drive time to reflect this pattern.

• You can change the speed settings for different road classifications on the Business Analyst Preferences Data tab.

• You can create more advanced drive-time polygons with custom road networks, adding barriers, and the like with the ArcGIS Network Analyst tools.

• The Detailed border option allows you to draw drive-time boundaries that will ignore areas that cannot be driven to. This may create holes in your drive-time boundary file.

Syntax

DriveTime_ba (InputFeatureLayer, IDField, All_Or_Single_Or_Selected, Radius, {MeasureUnits}, OutputFeatureClass, {ByID_Or_ByName}, {Single_Site}, {Donut}, {BorderShape}, {RemoveOverlap}, UseSMDT, {ShowTraverceStreets}, {JoinStreetAttr}, {OutTraverseFeatureClass}, Solver_Id, {BarrierFeatureClasses})

Parameter	Explanation	Data Type
InputFeatureLayer	The input feature class containing center points for the drive time trade areas. In most cases, this will be a Business Analyst store layer.	Feature Layer
IDField	Unique ID field in the ring center (store) layer.	Field
All_Or_Single_Or_Selected	Creates drive time trade areas for points in the input feature layer. All —Creates drive time trade areas for all points. Single —Creates drive time trade areas for a single point. Selected —Creates drive time trade areas for all selected points in ArcMap.	String
Radius [Radius,...]	The distances, in ascending size, used to create drive time trade areas around the input features.	Double
MeasureUnits (Optional)	The units used with the distance values. By default, the units defined in the Business Analyst preferences will be selected. Minutes —Missing Value Decimal Degrees —Missing Value Feet —Missing Value Kilometers —Missing Value Meters —Missing Value Miles —Missing Value Nautical Miles —Missing Value Yards —Missing Value	String
OutputFeatureClass	The feature class that will contain the drive-time features.	Feature Class
ByID_Or_ByName (Optional)	Field used to select a single point. ID —Selects a single point using the store ID field. Name —Selects a single point using the store name field.	String
Single_Site (Optional)	ID or name of store to be used as the single point.	String
Donut (Optional)	Creates nonoverlapping concentric rings, or donut bands. True —Creates output polygons that are donut rings. For example, if three radii (1, 2, and 3 miles) are entered, three output bands would be created with 0–1-, 1–3-, and 3–5-mile rings. False —Creates concentric rings. This is the default.	Boolean
BorderShape (Optional)	Creates a detailed border, ignoring areas that cannot be driven to. True —Generates a detailed border for the drive time. False —Does not generate a detailed border for the drive time.	Boolean
RemoveOverlap (Optional)	Creates overlapping concentric rings or removes overlap. TRUE —Uses Thiessen polygons to remove overlap between output ring polygons. FALSE — Output ring features are created with overlap.	Boolean
UseSMDT	Generates drive times based on the Street Map algorithm. These drive times will be generated more quickly in large areas as compared to the default Network Analyst drive times. True —Create drive times based on the Street Map algorithm. False —Creates drive times based on the Network Analyst algorithm.	Boolean
ShowTraverceStreets (Optional)	The feature class that contains all the streets contained by the drive-time polygon derived from the streets feature class. True —Displays traversed streets as a new layer. False —Does not display traversed streets as a new layer.	Boolean
JoinStreetAttr (Optional)	Joins the attribute field from the streets layer to the new drive time traversed streets that will contain the traversed drive-time network for each drive time trade area. True —Joins attribute data to the traversed street layer. False —Does not join attribute data to the traversed street layer.	Boolean
OutTraverseFeatureClass (Optional)	The feature class that will contain the traversed streets.	Feature Class
Solver_Id	The method to calculate drive time or drive distance. Standard Drive Times — Creates drive time polygons based on Network Analyst. This option is best utilized for large numbers of input points and creates more generalized output than the Detailed option. Detailed Drive Times — Creates drive time polygons based on Network Analyst. This option is best utilized for smaller numbers of input points and creates more detailed, processing intensive output. ArcGIS Online API —Creates drive time polygons based utilizing the ArcGIS Online API.	String
BarrierFeatureClasses [BarrierFeatureClasses,...] (Optional)	Allows a user to place point, line, or polygon barriers when using drive time or drive distance algorithms to calculate distances.	Feature Layer

Code Sample

DriveTime Example (Stand-alone Script)

# Name: DriveTime.py
# Description: Generates a 1, 3, and 5 mile drive time in minutes around a store site in San Francisco.
# Author: Esri

# Import system modules
import arcview
import arcpy

arcpy.AddToolbox("C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.2\Business Analyst\ArcToolbox\Toolboxes\Business Analyst Tools.tbx")
 
try:
# Acquire extension license 
  arcpy.CheckOutExtension("Business")
  arcpy.CheckOutExtension("Network") 
 
# Define input and output parameters for the Drive Time tool
  StorePath = "C:/temp/sf_store.shp"
  IdFld = "STORE_ID"
  OutPath = "C:/temp/Drivetime.shp"
 
# Create drive time based trade areas
  arcpy.DriveTime_ba(StorePath, IdFld, "ALL", "1;3;5", "Minutes", OutPath)
 
# Release extension license 
  arcpy.CheckInExtension("Business") 
  arcpy.CheckInExtension("Network") 
 
except:
  print arcpy.GetMessages(2)

Environments

This tool does not use any geoprocessing environments

Licensing Information

ArcGIS for Desktop Basic: Requires Business Analyst

ArcGIS for Desktop Standard: Requires Business Analyst

ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced: Requires Business Analyst