☕ 5-Mile Service Area Population Analysis
For this second phase of the site suitability analysis, the objective is to determine which of the three candidate coffee shop locations in Sacramento has the highest number of residents living within a 5-mile driving distance. To do that, the Network Analyst extension in ArcGIS Pro is used to create a network-based Service Area analysis. The input datasets for this assignment are the Candidate Coffee Shop Locations, the Roads Network Dataset, and the Population by Block Group.
For this second phase of the site suitability analysis, the objective is to determine which of the three candidate coffee shop locations in Sacramento has the highest number of residents living within a 5-mile driving distance. To do that, the Network Analyst extension in ArcGIS Pro is used to create a network-based Service Area analysis. The input datasets are the Candidate Coffee Shop Locations, the Roads Network Dataset, and the Population by Block Group.
The first step is to prepare the Service Area model. The Network Analyst tools are opened and the Service Area analysis type is selected. The correct network dataset is loaded — the road network created from Sacramento County's Street Centerline data. This dataset allows ArcGIS Pro to calculate realistic driving distances on the transportation network.
Next, the coffee shop locations are imported into the Service Area analysis using the "Import Facilities" button. After loading the facilities, a cutoff value of 26,400 feet is specified, which corresponds to a 5-mile travel distance. The Service Area tool is then run, which produces polygons representing the area reachable by driving 5 miles from each of the candidate locations.
Once the service area polygons are generated, the attributes of the candidate coffee shop points are joined to those polygons. The attribute table of the Polygons layer is opened and a join is performed using the FacilityID field from the service area output and the OBJECTID field from the candidate locations. After the join, the result is exported into a permanent feature class named "coffee_service_area_results."
In the next part of the workflow, the service area results are intersected with the population dataset. The Intersect tool is selected and "coffee_service_area_results" and the "Population by Block Group" layer are used as inputs. The output is stored as "coffee_service_area_population," and it represents the population living inside the 5-mile driving distance of each shop.
Finally, the Frequency tool is run to summarize the total population per location. The "coffee_service_area_population" table is selected as the input and grouped by the location and description fields, while using the Total Population field as the summary variable. This creates a final table that shows the number of residents within 5 miles of each candidate site.
📌 Tech Stack: ArcGIS Pro • Network Analyst Extension • Service Area Analysis • Roads Network Dataset • Population by Block Group • Intersect Tool • Frequency Tool • Attribute Join • Sacramento Street Centerline Data • TIGER/Line Census Geodatabases • data.census.gov
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