Overview

Service Area Analysis refers to the area range that can be provided by the specified service station on the network under the premise of meeting certain conditions.

First, we need to understand two basic concepts:

• Service station: the central point of service, the location where a specific service is provided, such as a supermarket, post office, community hospital, etc.
• Service Area: An area containing all accessible sides within a certain resistance range, centered at a specified point. Simply speaking, it is the area where the location providing a specific service serves according to certain conditions, such as the community area under the jurisdiction of a community police station according to administrative divisions.

During Network Analysis, the nodes with resources on the network are abstracted as service sites, and the maximum range distance of the service sites is abstracted as Service Radius. After successful analysis, the service network and service area (polygon) of the service sites are obtained. Service Area Analysis can be understood as a Resource Allocation that does not consider the central resource supply and demand, but only considers the resistance of the network arc between the supplier and the demander. This kind of analysis is generally used to evaluate and analyze the service scope of public facilities such as post offices, hospitals and supermarkets in a certain location, so as to provide reference for selecting the best location of public facilities.

Service Area Analysis parameter

When performing Service Area Analysis, it is necessary to set the processing method and analysis direction for overlapping service areas.

• Analyze from center stop: Set the direction of Service Area Analysis. Analyze from center stop and not analyze from center stop represent the relationship pattern between the service center and the place where the service is required. Analyze from center stop refers to a service center providing service to the service demand site, while not analyze from center stop refers to a service demand site actively obtaining service from the service center. For example, if a milk supply station delivers milk to each residential area, and Service Area Analysis is to be performed on the milk supply station to see the service range of the milk supply station under allowable conditions, the mode of starting from the central point should be used in the actual analysis process; For another example, if you want to analyze the area that a school in a region can serve under permissible conditions, in reality, students come to the school to learn and receive the services provided by the school, then in the actual analysis process, you should use a model that does not start from the central point.
• Service Stop Mutex: When service areas are overlapped, it is necessary to set whether to perform mutual exclusion processing on the overlapped service areas. According to the distance of the center point, it is judged whether mutual exclusion processing should be carried out. If the analyzed adjacent service areas have overlapping parts, they will be mutually exclusive. As shown in the figure, mutual exclusion is not performed in the left figure, but in the right figure.

Service Area Mutual Exclusion Diagram

• Generate Complex Area: Service Area Analysis supports Generate Complex Area. If Generate Complex Area is not selected, Analyst Result will simply outline the face contour according to the node. If Generate Complex Area is selected, the program will generate the face contour result strictly according to Generate Route. Analyst Result is more accurate. When you check Generate Complex Area, you can set the service area Buffer Radius: to accurately model the service area. As shown in the figure below, it is the result generated when the detailed surface is not checked and when the detailed surface is checked and the service area Buffer Radius is set.