ESRI International User Conference 2008

Q & A

ArcGIS Extensions

Q: The Network Analyst extension seems underdeveloped. Shouldn't it be able to support more flexible applications?

We have worked for the last several years to bring more of the end-user-centric functionality and solvers found in ArcLogistics to Network Analyst. We have seen increased interest in these products because of the dramatic increase in fuel prices around the world.

For example, Network Analyst 9.3 can be used to route single vehicles as well as fleets of vehicles via the vehicle routing problem (VRP) solver, offering you the ability to deploy a larger range of network-based routing applications. Network Analyst also includes a global turn delay evaluator and function evaluators allowing for more accurate route and service area modeling.

In addition, you will now have more flexibility in determining how and where you deploy Network Analyst applications as they will be supported on ArcGIS Engine, ArcGIS Desktop, and ArcGIS Server.