[Mapserver-users] Drive Time Analysis Software

[Joe Bussell]

Greetings,
     Drive time can be tricky depending on where your application is 
serving.  In Los Angeles it is very time dependent.  In rural Arizona it 
is about the same any time or day.  The former requires some significant 
analysis while the latter can be accomplished using one of several 
algorithms.  We have developed several techniques for route analysis 
here at On Time Systems.  One example routing application can be 
observeed at www.trafficdodger.com.  At that site we provide the user 
with the ability to obtain routes for specific times and days using 
speed data from the highway system.  Under the hood we have a souped-up 
A* (pronounce A-star) with a well tuned heuristic and dynamic leg 
costing.  Its good-to-go for static or dynamic conditions.

     We can provide a web-based or a soap based API for access to our 
route server, or you could license the software and host it inside your 
own system.  Please let me know if we can help.

     I am not aware of any open-source routing/drive-time packages.

Cordially,

Joe Bussell


PS:  If you are feeling like taking the plunge into writing your own 
application I would start with Dijkstra's algorithm  with a reduced 
graph.  That should be sufficient for a flood-fill polygon. 
http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/dijkstraalgo.html


PPS:   Mapserver users, please pardon the blatant plug.



Mark Rodrigo wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> I am looking for some drive time analysis software which will allow me to do
> like a 20 minute drive time from a certain point, and add a polygon for that
> drive time to a shapefile/create a shapefile. It has to have an open API so
> I can pass data from a database to it on a foreign server, and do nightly
> update routines to create the drive time shapes.
> 
> The goal: In Mapserver, I want to be able to display a drive time for a
> particular piece of property, and use that polygon to select demographic
> information.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Mark
> 
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