One of the best reasons to use a GIS is to unearth and analyze the
geographic components of your data. You can create bands (buffers)
around map features, create districts, define areas of influence,
perform surface analysis, and create density grids. TransCAD also makes
it easy to overlay and aggregate data and calculate statistics.
Ask and Answer Geographic Questions:
Where are areas with the highest population density? How many people
live within one, two, and three miles of a transit stop? TransCAD
answers these and many other types of questions. You can integrate
census statistics with your own data to identify geographic
characteristics that impact you and your operations. You will be amazed
at how quickly you can enhance your decision making using this
easy-to-use GIS tool.
Bands:
You can automatically create bands around any number of map features and
then analyze the characteristics of those areas. Find out how many
customers live within a certain distance of a store, compute the
demographic characteristics around potential store sites, analyze the
neighborhoods most affected by noise pollution from a highway, or
determine accessibility to facilities.
Districts:
TransCAD lets you join smaller areas into districts and compute the
attributes for each one. For example, you can group ZIP Codes or
counties together to create sales territories, land parcels to create
zoning districts, or city blocks to create school districts.
Areas of Influence:
You can determine the areas closest to each of your facilities by
building areas of influence, then estimate the attributes within each
area to determine areas that are under- or over-served.
Surface Analysis:
With TransCAD, you can analyze and display surfaces on a two-dimensional
map or as a 3D map. You can create contour maps of elevations and then
determine the viewshed for any location, either at ground level or at a
particular height. For example, you can find areas of weak service from
a transmission tower. You can also create surfaces that represent data
values, such as measures of air pollution or levels of radon gas, over a
geographic region.
Density Grids:
TransCAD lets you visualize point data by transforming the points into a
regular grid. This makes it easy to identify customer concentrations,
crime hot spots, or areas with high vehicle emissions. In addition, the
grid can be weighted based on a value you choose. For example, you could
analyze the pattern of clients around a store and weight them by the
cost of their purchases, or find all employers and weight them by the
number of jobs.
Adjacency Tools:
With TransCAD you can identify the neighbors of an area of interest and
create bands of adjacent neighbors. Use these tools for topological
querying, exploring market expansion, planning evacuations, or tracking
disease outbreaks.
In addition, you can:
• Measure areas and distances
• Aggregate and disaggregate attribute data
• Create contours and viewsheds
• Locate facilities and determine trade areas
• Create areas from line features or lines from area features
• Select features by pointing, radius, polygon, condition, value, or
location
• Generate statistics (count, sum, mean, minimum, maximum, standard
deviation,
one-way and two-way tabulations, and more)
