The subject of a lot of analysis tasks we’re working on is the catchment area analysis of a dedicated settlement, based on ZIP codes.

Here is a sample analysis using ArcHungary vector map of Hungary, and DSMMatrix best route and time database of Hungarian settlements.

Drive time zones analysis

The main goal of the analysis is to define catchment area of a city or a supply area of a service location or sales territory.

The basic analysis result shows a list and a map of settlements or ZIP codes belonging to 15-30-60-minute drive time zones of the enrolled settlements. This result can be completed with the number of coverage population (maybe population by age groups), or purchasing power of population.

Common drive time zones of county seats in Hungary

Overlaps and peripheral settlements

The advantage of data visualization on a map is that we can see territorial connections that graphs are unable to show.

The map below shows the common 60 minutes drive time area of three county seats. The different colors show if we can reach one, two or both three county seats from a settlement within an our by car using the main road network.

There are only 3 settlements (pink area) in the region where both three county seats are reachable from within an hour and there are 112 settlements (grey areas) where none of the county seats of the region are reachable from within an hour by car. Important to note: between Kaposvár and Szekszárd there are only six more settlements (green area) within an hour drive time, while between Pécs and Szekszárd (orange area), or Pécs and Kaposvár (purple area) the number of settlements are more than a hundred.

Characteristic of zones in these counties

On this map we can see the drive time zones of the county seats from the settlements of their own counties. The main goal is to show the percentage of  settlements belongs to the different drive time zones in the county.

The graph shows that from the settlements of Somogy county takes more time to reach the county seat than from the others.

In Somogy county from more than 40 % of settlements take more than an hour to reach the county seats (Baranya – Pécs – 2 %, Tolna – Szekszárd – 20%)!