Note:
This tool is now available in Map Viewer, the modern map-making tool in ArcGIS Online. To learn more, see Generate Travel Areas.
The Create Drive-Time Areas tool uses Esri Service Areas to calculate the area that can be reached within a specified travel time or travel distance along a street network based on travel mode.
Workflow diagram
Examples
A local reporter is working on a story about response times to fires in her city. She wants to determine how much of the city is within a four-minute drive time of the city's fire stations in heavy and light traffic. She also wants to determine what the response time would be in the furthest-to-reach parts of the city.
See the Investigating response times case study for the complete workflow.
A development company is planning to build a new retirement community and wants to learn more about the demographics in the area surrounding existing communities. The target demographics for the new retirement community will be based on the demographics within a 5-mile driving distance of the best performing community.
See the Locating a new retirement community case study for the complete workflow.
Usage notes
The input is a single layer of points containing up to 1,000 features.
The drive-time area can be based on several different travel modes using time or distance as the measure. You can create multiple output areas by inputting each time or distance, separated by a space.
Some travel modes have an option for using traffic conditions. When traffic conditions are used, they may be based on live conditions or typical conditions for a specified day of the week and time. Live traffic conditions can be offset up to 4 hours from the current time. Times for typical conditions can be set by 15-minute intervals for the entire day and night.
Travel modes can be configured by the administrator of your organization. The administrator can also add new travel modes or remove travel modes that are not necessary for your organization. The default distance measure will be in Miles or Kilometers, depending on the Units setting in your profile.
| Measure | Description | Defaults | Options |
|---|---|---|---|
| Follows paths and roads that allow pedestrian traffic and finds solutions that optimize travel time. The walking speed is set to 5 kilometers per hour. | Walking speed is set at 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) per hour. The walking speed can be configured by the administrator of your organization. The default Walking Time is 5 Minutes. | Durations can be in Seconds, Minutes, or Hours. A duration of up to 9 hours can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the duration cannot exceed 5 hours. |
| Models the movement of cars and other similar small automobiles, such as pickup trucks, and finds solutions that optimize travel distance. Travel obeys one-way roads, avoids illegal turns, and follows other rules that are specific to cars but does not discourage travel on unpaved roads. | The default Rural Driving Distance is 5 Miles (US Standard setting) or 5 Kilometers (Metric setting). | Distances can be in Miles, Yards, Feet, Kilometers, or Meters. A distance of up to 300 miles (482.80 kilometers) can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the distance cannot exceed 15 miles (24.14 kilometers). |
| The default travel mode. Models the movement of cars and other similar small automobiles, such as pickup trucks, and finds solutions that optimize travel time. Travel obeys one-way roads, avoids illegal turns, and follows other rules that are specific to cars. When you specify a start time, dynamic travel speeds based on traffic are used where traffic data is available. Verify whether traffic data is available in your region by clicking the See availability link in the tool pane. | The default Driving Time is 5 Minutes. Use traffic is unchecked by default. The driving speed will be based on historical and live traffic data. | Durations can be in Seconds, Minutes, or Hours. A duration of up to 5 hours can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the duration cannot exceed 15 minutes. Traffic can be based on live conditions or typical conditions for a specified day of the week and time. |
| Models the movement of cars and other similar small automobiles, such as pickup trucks, and finds solutions that optimize travel distance. Travel obeys one-way roads, avoids illegal turns, and follows other rules that are specific to cars. | The default Driving Distance is 5 Miles (US Standard setting) or 5 Kilometers (Metric setting). | Distances can be in Miles, Yards, Feet, Kilometers, or Meters. A distance of up to 300 miles (482.80 kilometers) can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the distance cannot exceed 15 miles (24.14 kilometers). |
| Follows paths and roads that allow pedestrian traffic and finds solutions that optimize travel distance. | The default Walking Distance is 5 Miles (US Standard setting) or 5 Kilometers (Metric setting). | Distances can be in Miles, Yards, Feet, Kilometers, or Meters. A distance of up to 27 miles (43.45 kilometers) can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the distance cannot exceed 15 miles (24.14 kilometers). |
| Models the movement of cars and other similar small automobiles, such as pickup trucks, and finds solutions that optimize travel time. Travel obeys one-way roads, avoids illegal turns, and follows other rules that are specific to cars but does not discourage travel on unpaved roads. When you specify a start time, dynamic travel speeds based on traffic are used where it is available. Verify whether traffic data is available in your region by clicking the See availability link in the tool pane. | The default Rural Driving Time is 5 Minutes. Use traffic is unchecked by default. The rural driving speed will be based on historical and live traffic data. | Durations can be in Seconds, Minutes, or Hours. A duration of up to 5 hours can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the duration cannot exceed 15 minutes. Traffic can be based on live conditions or typical conditions for a specified day of the week and time. |
| Models basic truck travel by preferring designated truck routes and finds solutions that optimize travel time. Routes must obey one-way roads, avoid illegal turns, and so on. When you specify a start time, dynamic travel speeds based on traffic are used where it is available, up to the legal truck speed limit. The trucking speed will be based on either historical average speeds for automobiles or the posted speed limits for trucks, whichever is smaller. Follows rules applicable to heavy trucks. | The default Trucking Time is 5 Minutes. Use traffic is unchecked by default. The trucking speed will be based on historical and live traffic data but will not exceed the posted trucking speed. | Durations can be in Seconds, Minutes, or Hours. A duration of up to 5 hours can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the duration cannot exceed 15 minutes. Traffic can be based on live conditions or typical conditions for a specified day of the week and time. |
| Models basic truck travel by preferring designated truck routes and finds solutions that optimize travel distance. Routes must obey one-way roads, avoid illegal turns, and so on. Follows rules applicable to heavy trucks. | The default Trucking Distance is 5 Miles (US Standard setting) or 5 Kilometers (Metric setting). | Distances can be in Miles, Yards, Feet, Kilometers, or Meters. A distance of up to 300 miles (482.80 kilometers) can be used as input. If generating holes or reachable streets in the output, the distance cannot exceed 15 miles (24.14 kilometers). |
The Select barrier layers parameter can be used to specify one or more features that act as temporary restrictions when traveling on the underlying streets.
The Travel direction parameter can be set as either Away from facility or Toward facility. The direction of travel will determine which streets are used in the drive-time areas based on traffic rules, such as one-way streets and illegal turns.
By default, the Create Drive-Time Areas tool will create overlapping areas when the travel areas from different points meet. The other options for overlapping areas are Dissolve or Split.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| For any travel area that is on top of another travel area, the areas in common are kept. |
| For any travel area that is on top of another travel area, the areas in common are combined. |
| For any travel area that is on top of another travel area, the overlapping areas are split in the middle. |
The Show unreachable areas as holes check box determines whether each output area will be one continuous polygon or include holes on streets that are not reachable through the travel mode or measure.
The Include reachable streets check box creates an output layer of the streets that were used to create the drive-time areas.
If Use current map extent is checked, only the features that are visible within the current map extent will be used to create drive-time- or drive-distance-based areas. If unchecked, all features in the input layer will be used, even if they are outside the current map extent.
Tip:
Click Show Credits before you run your analysis to check how many credits will be consumed.
Limitations
- The Create Drive-Time Areas tool supports point features only. Multipoint features are not supported.
- The input layer can have no more than 1,000 points.
- You must be granted the network analysis privilege to use Create Drive-Time Areas.
- Travel times cannot exceed 9 hours (540 minutes) when walking or 5 hours (300 minutes) for all other travel times.
- Travel distances cannot exceed 27 miles (43.45 kilometers) when walking or 300 miles (482.8 kilometers) for all other travel distances.
- When generating holes or reachable streets, travel times cannot exceed 5 hours (300 minutes) when walking or 15 minutes for all other travel times.
- When generating holes or reachable streets, travel distances cannot exceed 15 miles (24.14 kilometers).
- Traffic conditions are not supported in all regions. Check for coverage in your area using the ArcGIS Online Directions and Routing Services Coverage web map.
- Travel mode availability is determined by your organization's administrator.
- An error will occur if the tool takes more than 60 minutes to execute. If this error occurs, try rerunning the analysis with fewer input features.
- You can specify up to 250 features to act as point barriers.
- If the number of street features intersected by all the line barriers exceeds 500, the tool returns an error.
- If the number of street features intersected by all the polygon barriers exceeds 2,000, the tool returns an error.
- The total number of reachable streets in the output cannot exceed 1,000,000. If this error occurs, try rerunning the analysis with fewer input features or deselect Include reachable streets.
How Create Drive-Time Areas works
The Create Drive-Time Areas tool uses the ArcGIS Online network analysis service as a street network. To find out more about the latest updates to the street network, see What's new in the network analysis services.
Service Areas use Dijkstra's algorithm to traverse a network. The service returns a subset of connected edge features that are within a specified travel distance or travel time. Travel areas are created by inputting the edges into a triangulated irregular network (TIN) data structure. The network distance along the lines serves as the height of the locations inside the TIN. Locations not traversed by the service area are put in with a much larger height value. An area-generation routine is used with this TIN to carve out regions encompassing areas in between the specified break values (travel time or travel distance).
The Live traffic option uses the current time as the departure. The traffic speed is predicted for the trip using live speeds, historical speeds, and current events, such as weather.
When typical conditions for a day of the week and time are being used, the travel speeds are based on historical speeds averaged across 5-minute intervals for the entire week. The selected time will correspond to local time in the time zone that your data is in. If your data is in more than one time zone, the drive-time area will be generated for both time zones (for example, 8:00 a.m. eastern time and 8:00 a.m. pacific time). The Areas from different points parameter must be set to Overlap if your data is in more than one time zone.
When either traffic condition is used, the Create Drive-Time Areas tool will take into consideration the changing traffic conditions based on elapsed time from departure.
Similar tools
Use Create Drive-Time Areas to determine what area you can reach within a specified time or distance. Other tools may be useful in solving similar but slightly different problems.
Map Viewer Classic analysis tools
If you are trying to generate areas around points, lines, or areas with a straight-line distance rather than a street network, use the Create Buffers tool.
If you are trying to summarize features within a specified travel time or distance of your input layer, use the Summarize Nearby tool.
If you are trying to create enriched areas based on travel modes, use the Enrich Layer tool.
Note:
Traffic conditions are not available when using travel modes in the Enrich Layer tool.
ArcGIS Pro analysis tools
The Create Drive-Time Areas tool performs a similar function to the Generate Service Areas tool or the Service Area solver in ArcGIS Network Analyst extension.