A Network-Based Spatial Analytical Method for Detecting Agglomerations in a Point Distribution on a Network and Its Implementation

Abstract

Many kinds of phenomena, including traffic accidents, road kills of wild animals and distribution of urban facilities, occur on a network. To analyze their spatial patterns, this paper proposes a new spatial analytical method, called NT-VCM (Network Variable Clumping Method), as an extension of Variable Clumping Method on a plane, which we developed earlier and named PLN-VCM (Planar Variable Clumping Method). The major function of NT-VCM is to statistically detect significant multi-level network clumps in the distribution of points on a network using Monte Carlo simulations. Applying NT-VCM and PLN-VCM to the same data set, this paper shows that NT-VCM preserves connectivity of points on a network better than PLN-VCM.