Building a territory network index

Available with Business Analyst license.

Overview

Building a territory network index allows users to significantly improve the performance of drive-time and drive-distance calculations. A territory network index (TNI) stores pre-calculated values of network cost attributes, between pairs of key points on a street network.

Best practices

Typically the alignment layer feature class is used for the role of a key points layer. It is recommended that only the focused area of the territory solution be considered when building a TNI, and to avoid building large, nationwide indexes. Within the focused area, a selection of the alignment layer should be exported and used as key points. For example, if a territory solution is built for Los Angeles County ZIP Codes, then the ZIP Code boundaries for Los Angeles County should first be exported then used as a key points layer.

Note:

Building a key points layer on the entire ZIP Code database or any nationwide polygon layer will take several hours to process and is not recommended. For any polygonal alignment layers used for TNIs, the centroids of their polygons will be used as key points.

1. Click Territory Design > Common Tools > Territory Network Index... from the Territory Design toolbar. The screenshot below shows the first panel of the Territory Network Index dialog box.

   

2. Choose the Build new Territory Network Index option from the Network Index wizard. Click Next.
3. The following options are available to define your network index:

   

   • Street Network: - pre-loaded from the Business Analyst preferences. You may browse to your desired network from here.
   • Distance Type: - pre-loaded from the Business Analyst preferences. Options include: TravelTime and TravelDistance.
   • Key Points Layer: - Typically, an alignment layer feature class is used.

     Note:

     When using polygons, the centroids are derived and used as the Key points layer.

   • Name your Territory Network Index: - The index name must be unique. By default, the index name is constructed from the Street Network and Impedance Attribute parameters.

   All indexes, are stored in the folder: C:\My Output Data\Projects\Default Project\Custom Territory Network Indexes.

   Click Next.

4. A summary of your settings are shown: To make changes you can Click the Back button, otherwise Click Finish.

Manage an existing territory network index

You can choose any of your existing network Indexes to perform a variety of actions.

1. Click Territory Design > Common Tools > Territory Network Index... from the Territory Design toolbar.
2. Choose the Manage Territory Network Indexes option from the Territory Network Index wizard. Click Next.

   

3. Select one or more territory network indexes. The following actions can be performed:
   • View information - view details of selected territory network index.
   • Update - steps you through the wizard selections of a previously created territory network index and permits changes.
   • Rename - allows you to rename the chosen territory network index.
   • Delete Selected - removes and permanently deletes all chosen territory network indexes from your My Output Data folder.

Territory network index in detail

A territory network index works much faster when creating territories because the algorithm does not make calls to the Network Analyst extension API, but rather, uses a pre-calculated network index instead. Learn more about territory network indexes by reading this technical brief.