ViaCity Answers (FAQ)
11. Oct, 2010 
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Simple Answers to Common Questions
- What is ViaCity?
- What does ViaCity do?
- How might I use ViaCity?
- What is RDI?
- How does RDI work in large areas?
- How does ViaCity handle barriers like creeks, freeways, or railroad lines?
- Can a ViaCity study include features such as density or land use?
- Can I use RDI scoring as policy standard?
- Why not use LNR or ID?
- What about the online maps?
1. What is ViaCity?
Transpo Group created our patent-pending ViaCity software to automate large-scale connectivity analysis of transportation options for transit stations, neighborhoods and entire cities. ViaCity is based on ESRI® GIS software and uses Route Directness Index (RDI) technology. Transpo Group provides expert connectivity analysis services with ViaCity, and offers ViaCity software to clients of our workshop solutions.
2. What does ViaCity do?
ViaCity helps planners quantify and visualize how well transit, bike paths, walking routes, and streets connect residential and commercial areas. ViaCity’s RDI-based connectivity scores provide planners with realistic and detailed metrics for prioritizing projects, evaluating options, and calculating fiscal performance.
3. How might I use ViaCity?
ViaCity is for transit planners, bicycle & pedestrian planners, engineers, city planners and commercial developers working on a wide array of transportation facilities. For example:
- Transit – Identify and prioritize improvements to a transit station, stop or transfer center, or identify the most suitable locations for new stations.
- Pedestrian & Bicycle Facilities – Discover critical areas in a city or a neighborhood that would benefit most from new pathways, bike routes or elimination of gaps in a sidewalk/greenway system.
- Cities – Determine optimal service areas for fire stations, discover and improve walk-to-school routes, or analyze access to parks and other city services.
- Streets – Demonstrate the impact of circulation improvements – for example, new street connections to provide alternatives to clogged arterials.
- Commercial – Study optimal locations for stores, compare performance of stores with similar connectivity, or design walkable, bike-friendly developments.
4. What is RDI?
ViaCity results are based on the Route Directness Index (RDI) calculation. RDI compares the straight-line distance between two points with the actual route between those points. A higher RDI value means people have a more direct and desirable route from point A to point B; a lower value means people have to go out of their way.
5. How does RDI work in large areas?
Using ViaCity, a planner can score the overall connectivity of a large area by requesting the aggregate RDI score of all parcels in the area to all other parcels (many to many). Or, a planner can ask ViaCity to determine the connectivity of a range of parcels to a single destination (many to one).
6. How does ViaCity handle barriers like creeks, freeways, or railroad lines?
Because RDI analysis compares crow-flight distance to the actual routes people travel, barriers are already factored into ViaCity calculations. Additional impedances, such as a lack of sidewalks, or hills that make bicycling difficult, can be layered into a ViaCity connectivity analysis.
7. Can a ViaCity study include features such as density or land use?
Yes. Because ViaCity is based on ESRI® GIS technology and parcel-level detail, a ViaCity analysis can factor in land use, property value, demographics, and other data.
8. Can I use RDI scoring as policy standard?
Yes. Because ViaCity produces quantitative results, you can use RDI metrics as connectivity benchmarks.
9. Why not use LNR or ID?
Unlike RDI technology, Link-Node-Ratio (LNR) and Intersection Density (ID) do not directly measure connections or connectivity quality, so are insensitive to the impacts of changes to connectivity. LNR reflects cul-de-sac activity, and ID reflects the density of development. Both may show a rough approximation of where things may connect, but neither is an accurate way to quantify the benefits of new connections.
10. What about the online maps?
Maps from Google, Bing and others continue to improve for consumers searching for a transportation route or distance. Other web sites have begun to use these map platforms to rank an area’s walkability, bikability, or transit-friendliness. Yet, rather than determine true connectedness via actual routes, these sites calculate distance in straight aerial lines, ignoring important barriers like waterways, buildings, or freeways. The resulting approximations are often inaccurate and misleading portrayals of an area’s genuine connectedness.
For professional planners, ViaCity provides realistic and precise assessment of connectivity using GIS network and parcel data. And unlike online sites, which show maps of today, ViaCity “what if” scenarios allow planners to quantify the benefits of improvements, and consider density, land use, topography, socioeconomic information, and other GIS-based data.
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