Is it possible to calculate trade are that spans multiple countries

Question

Hi,

With the availability of canadian spatial data, is it possible to calculate demographic values spaning accross both US and Canada ? For e.g. If I want to calculate population within 100 minutes from Niagara falls,Canada will it capture population from both US and Canada? or is it limited to one dataset ?

Thank you in advance

-Kansas

hhaigh1 · Accepted Answer

Hi asirisilva,

The Tom Tom drive time data is separated into two data sets, one for Canada and one for the US, so you'd have to create two trade areas and then combine them.

Here is an example (I used the Niagara Falls Post office at 4500 Queen St as the centroid).

100 mins drive time Canada on the left and 100 mins drive time US on the right:

Using the Summarize tool's Spatial Combine functionality, they are combined to one polygon:

If you are calculating your trade area based on distance, it will cross borders and you only have to create one radius.

To append demographic values, you can take a similar approach. Once you have your two polugons, you can use them to pull the demographic information and then combine everything together to get a full report.