Emergency Dept. Distance OSM roads Network Analyst

Question

I have a shapefile that is all of the roads in the Republic of Ireland, I have downloaded this from OSM. I have then created a new point shapefile with a point for every emergency department in Ireland. I am trying to find out what road or section of road is the furthest from an emergency dept. in the country.

From what I know, I can clean up the geometry and then create a network dataset and then maybe use 'Closest Facility' to find what I'm looking for?

Will I be able to create a network dataset from ordinary OSM data?

Answer 1

The ArcGIS network analyst extension needs a properly prepared network dataset (graph) for routing. Ordinary OpenStreetMap data sets are not routable because they are simple linestrings. Take a look at the OSM2NetwordDataset tool by Eva Peters.

This tool creates a routable network dataset and takes turn restrictions (from OSM relations), oneway roads and maximum speed limitations into account. However, in the past the file size of an OSM dataset was a limiting factor.

After preparing the OSM dataset with osm2nds you can use all functionalities of the ArcGIS network analyst.

Answer 2

If you intend to do routing on a Network Dataset in ArcGIS for Desktop using OSM data, you should really have a look at ESRI's Open Source and free "ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap". It contains specially designed tools to create a routable Network Dataset from OpenStreetMap data, that deals with the specifics of OSM data in this area.

ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap:

http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=16970017f81349548d0a9eead0ebba39

To be honest, I have never used the routing related stuff, so can't say how well it works, but I have used other parts of the same toolbox (unrelated to routing), like the *.osm file import.

Please note (I am not an ESRI employee but have been in contact with some of the ESRI developers via the Github site), that ESRI is working on a new release of the toolset, that contains some major fixes for OSM multipolygon relations and the processing of these in the toolset, fixing some issues I and other people reported to ESRI. This will have a major effect on the quality of polygon output by the tool. I can't say when it will be released though.

The Github repository for the source code of the tool is here: https://github.com/Esri/arcgis-osm-editor