Export Future Network (Utilities) Tool

This tool will build the MHN to its coded state for a specified year, and save the modified links and nodes in a specified geodatabase. Within the geodatabase, it will create a year-specific feature dataset (if one doesn't already exist), into which the link and node feature classes will be saved. Temporary CSVs containing attribute data for MHN links and highway project coding to be implemented by the specified year are generated.

The program process_highway_coding.sas is automatically called (via sasrun.bat) to update network attributes, add new links and delete old ones according to the temporary highway project coding CSVs.

This tool was written specifically to facilitate the processing of up-to-date GTFS bus data that are newer than the MHN's base year (currently 2015), ensuring that the buses are routed on the roads in their current state.

It is also extremely useful for verifying that highway project coding does what it was intended to after running the Import Highway Projects tool: rather than selecting individual links that are affected by the coding and then viewing the raw coding related to it in the hwyproj_coding table, exporting a future network makes the coded changes immediately visible, and the updated attributes (e.g. THRULANES1) can be queried directly from the resultant links (or even symbolized by color/thickness/etc. in ArcMap) to quickly verify the accuracy of the coding.