Proximity analysis

Proximity analysis is a class of spatial analysis tools and algorithms that employ geographic distance as a central principle.[1] Proximity analysis is a crucial tool for business marketing and site selection. Marketers analyze demographics and infrastructure to determine trade areas. Trade areas are continuous geographic areas around a site that generate the majority of revenue.

Proximity Analysis is a study using location intelligence, mapping software, to calculate the distances between customer/prospect locations, to your location(s) (retail store, bank, restaurant, dealer, or sales reps) as the first step in building an understanding of trade/sales/service area(s). An analysis typically includes a report and map showing the relationship of the data and often includes competitor locations in the analysis.

Techniques

There are a variety of tools, models, and algorithms that incorporate geographic distance, due to the variety of relevant problems and tasks.[2] That said, almost all are fundamentally based on a few core principles of geography, such as the friction of distance, Tobler's first law of geography, and Spatial autocorrelation.

A Voronoi diagram
  • Buffers, a tool for determining the region that is within a specified distance of a set of geographic features.
  • Cost distance analysis, an algorithm for finding optimal routes through continuous space that minimize distance and/or other location dependent costs.
  • Voronoi diagram, also known as Thiessen polygons, an algorithm for partitioning continuous space into a set of regions based on a set of point locations, such that each region consists of locations that are closer to one of the points than any others.
  • Distance decay, based on the Inverse square law, a mathematical model of how the influence of a phenomenon tends to be inversely proportional to the distance from it. A Gravity model is a similar model.
  • Location analysis, a set of (usually heuristic) algorithms for finding the optimal locations of a limited set of points (e.g., store locations) that minimize the aggregate distance to another set of points (e.g., customer locations). A commonly used example is Lloyd's algorithm.
  • Distance matrix, an array containing the distances (Euclidean or otherwise) between any two points in a set. This is frequently used as the independent variable in statistical tests of whether the strength of a relationship is correlated with distance, such as the volume of trade between cities.
Illustration of Dijkstra's Algorithm, a core element of Network Analysis
  • Transport network analysis, a set of algorithms and tools for solving a number of distance routing problems when travel is constrained to a network of one-dimensional lines, such as roads and utility networks. For example, the common task of finding the shortest route from point A to point B, which is typically solved using Dijkstra's algorithm

References
  1. Blinn, Charles R., Lloyd P. Queen, and Les W. Maki, "Geographic Information Systems: A Glossary." Archived 2010-03-22 at the Wayback Machine
  2. de Smith, Michael J.; Goodchild, Michael F.; Longley, Paul A. (2018). "4.4 Distance Operations". Geospatial Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide to Principles, Techniques, and Software Tools (6th ed.).
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