Network Analysis

Goals and Objectives

The goals of this lab were to use network analysis for the purpose of calculating the shortest distance from mines to railroad terminals and to get an estimate of the cost to ship the sand from a mine to a terminal.

The objectives were as follows:

1.       Load features into the Network Analysis Window

2.       Calculate a route

3.       Calculate a closest facility and route

4.       Build a model to calculate the closest facility route.

5.       Calculate the cost of sand truck travel on roads by county.

6.       Write a report (blog post) based on the results.

Methods

This lab required a lot of data from several sources. We utilized the mine data that we obtained from our previous exercise, railroad terminals (Prof. Hupy's folder) and the streets dataset from the ESRI resource. All of these main data, along with several other small figures, were used in a Network Analysis of the routes to take from each mine to a terminal. I used the closest facility function to receive the best route possible. The closest facility tool is composed of facilities and incidents which indicates a destination layer and source to work from. The last step is to have the tool solve the data. Next, the mileage of each route was calculated in order to create an index of how much it would cost to ship the sand 50 times back and forth at a cost of 2.2 cents per mile. Below is the equation used to determine this cost:

Costs = ([SUM_SHAPE_LENGTH]*0.022)*50


Many tools were used in the creation of this model. They consisted of:

     -Closest Facility
     -Add Locations
     -Solve
     -Copy Features
     -Intersect
     -Project
     -Summarize
     -Add Field
     -Calculate Field

Figure 1 above is the model that was utilized in the creation of the project. It was made in Model Builder.

Results

This lab used many tools to attempt to create a final product that was very relevant to our study. Through the usage of these tools the creation of an interesting spatial response was produced. Network Anlaysis can very important in find just not directions, but also paths of "least resistance." Figure 2 below shows the shortest path from mines to a designated rail terminal.

Figure 2 shows Frac Sand mines, railroad terminals, railroads and the route from a mine to a terminal. You can see a an outward spiral of mines from each terminal in the image. 

 



Figure 3 is shows the values that I received through my conversions and calculation of costs. The graph corresponds to the data in the table.



 

Conclusions

The lab was a great way to learn more about Network Analysis and many more very helpful tools. Some major tools that were showcased were Model Builder and Network Analysis tools (ie. closest facility and routes). My data would suggest that Trempealeau, Chippewa, La Crosse and Eau Claire counties all have the most traffic as far as Frac Sand is concerned. It will be interesting to compare data with my colleagues to see if we obtained similar results.