Project 4 - GIS and Transportation Report

The posted maps were created for the University of West Florida On-Line GIS certification program class, Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930) as part of the Project 4 Report Week assignment focusing on using GIS and Transportation. In the weeks assignment we used territories similar to the ones outlined in the analyze phase to identify the top sales prospects in each sales region and find the optimal route to visit all 10 sites as efficiently as possible.

For now, I'm just posting my maps and will add more detail tomorrow:

Here are the optimal route maps for all three sales territories:

Northwest Territory Optimal Route



Northeast Territory Optimal Route



South Territory Optimal Route

Project 4 - GIS and Transportation Analyze

The posted maps were created for the University of West Florida On-Line GIS certification program class, Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930) as part of the Project 4 Analyze Week assignment focusing on using GIS and Transportation. In the weeks assignment we had to create sales territories for three sales people for the Napa's Best wine company based on the prospects identified in the previous weeks maps.

The criteria for dividing the prospects into sales territories were:

1. Each territory should contain about 1/3 of the prospects with no more then a variance of two prospects between territories.
2. The level of sales potential for each territory should not vary more than +/- 5% from the average of the territories.



The first method for choosing territories required manually selecting sites using the GIS selection tools until the required number of sites was achieved and it was verified that the sites total sales potential met that criteria. The method is straightforward and easily allows for creating three balanced territories that appear on the map as distinct geographic areas.



Two alternate methods for choosing territories were explored. The first method focused on trying to divide the sales area into quadrants that were divided somewhat equally with prospects also divided equally. The dividing lines for the quadrants are straight lines that do not attempt to preserve the prospect counts specifically, rather by having the line split prospects in a best fit manner that maintains as much as possible the proper division of prospects. Unfortunately, I could not seem to get the dividing lines to fit close enough and had a split of 89-96-105.



The final method focused on using existing roadways as borders for the territories. The map only displays the major roads, but in order to make sure the prospect split was correct, minor roads were incorporated, particularly in the population center where most of the prospects are concentrated. The splits for this layer were the best ones from a prospects and sales potential perspective at 96-97-97 split for prospects and a deviation from the average of the territories of no more than 2.3%, well under the 5% threshold. Additionally, setting up the territories using roadways allowed for consideration of travel times and routing of sales calls such that certain prospects were shifted to a territory based on the travel path to them.

For these reasons, it was recommended that Napa's Best choose the third option, territories based on roadway borders to set up the sale territories in Napa County.

The final map displays the recommended territory layout and contains some additional graphing to help illustrate why this method was best.

The posted map was created for the University of West Florida On-Line GIS certification program class, Special Topics in GIS (GIS 4930) as part of the Project 4 Prepare Week assignment focusing on using GIS and Transportation. The project will again focuses on business and marketing aspects of a GIS, this time on using GIS to help a fictional wine company, Napa's Best (NB), define sales territories and identify prospective customers in Napa County, California.



The objectives for the Preparation week were to:

1) Create and explore a base map of Napa County depicting number of households by census tract.
2) Display prospective customer stores by location and store type.
3) Explore average household restaurant and liquor store purchases by census tract.
4) Calculate and display wine purchases by household by census tract.

I chose to combine the four thematic (choropleth) maps and the base map into one map to allow for the viewer to easily compare census tract data. I decided to do the main map in a larger scale to allow for more separation between the symbols for each prospective customer. I could do so because the outer parts of the county do not contain any stores and have smaller concentrations of population over a wider area which meant the entire base map did not need to be displayed at the higher scale, just the part that had the geographic features important to the overall theme. Symbolizing choropleth part of the inset map for household numbers in the same color scheme allows for the viewer to make the connection to the distribution of stores in the main map as applied to the county as a whole as seen in each of the other maps. Also, the shape of the county lent itself to such a design as the sales distribution choropleth maps could be squeezed closer together allowing more room to display the base map. I did cheat a little on the bottom map, extending it over the border of the two top ones, but I actually think that touch adds a little pizazz to the map and helps to tie all three choropleths together as thematically similar elements.

Market Analysis Week 3 Report

The link below is to my final submission for the Market Analysis project. It is a power point presentation tying together the prepare and analysis phase work from the previous two weeks to select a new site for a fictional bookstore, Better Books, in the San Francisco market.



Week 3 Better Books Market Analysis Report