---
title: Podaris:Insight Mesh Density Analysis
description: Measure the share of areas/zones covered by qualifying walking or cycling routes, and find gaps in the network with Mesh Density analysis.
---

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1. [Help Center](https://support.podaris.com/?hsLang=en)
2. [Podaris:Insight](https://support.podaris.com/podarisinsight?hsLang=en)
3. [Analysis Types](https://support.podaris.com/podarisinsight?hsLang=en#analysis-types)

# Podaris:Insight Mesh Density Analysis

## Measure the share of areas/zones covered by qualifying walking or cycling routes, and find gaps in the network.

### **What is Podaris:Insight?**

Podaris:Insight is a toolkit for simplifying a number of types of accessibility analysis. It is designed to dramatically speed up the process of performing accessibility analysis on networks and datasets created or imported in Podaris.

It provides a simple interface through which analysis projects can be created and shared, and the corresponding results exported. You can learn more about Podaris:Insight and the analysis types that it offers[here.](https://support.podaris.com/podarisinsight-overview?hsLang=en)

### **What is the mesh density analysis type?**

The mesh density analysis type evaluates the spatial distribution, tightness and coverage density of a qualifying part of a[street network](https://support.podaris.com/streets?hsLang=en), across defined geographical units. You can answer questions like:

- What percentage of neighbourhoods are within 200m of a dedicated cycle route?
- What is the total length of the lit vs unlit street network?
- How does the density of the active travel network compare between central urban cores and suburban outskirts?
- Which zones achieve high coverage density despite shorter total network lengths?

You choose a Streets project, define which links qualify and the spatial zones (e.g., 1km x 1km grid cells). Insight returns the area coverage & total network length statistics, any dataset queries you set, and the coverage gaps for areas not reached.

Unlike[stop catchment](https://support.podaris.com/podarisinsight-stop-catchment-analysis?hsLang=en) and[isochrone analysis](https://support.podaris.com/podarisinsight-isochrone-analysis?hsLang=en), which measure from points, mesh density measures from a network, utilising some of the underlying tools from [street catchment](https://support.podaris.com/podarisinsight-street-catchment-analysis?hsLang=en).

![mesh-example](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/mesh-example.png?width=670&height=415&name=mesh-example.png)

**Tip**: To measure the benefit of a proposed scheme, build it in the[street editor](https://support.podaris.com/editing-street-networks?hsLang=en), publish it as a second view, then run this analysis against each view in turn. The difference between the two uncovered figures is the benefit.

### Qualifying streets

Qualifying streets are the links people need to reach. Choose a preset, or click **Edit** next to Predicate to build your own rule from street attributes.

- **Traffic-free paths**: cycleways, bridleways and designated cycle paths away from carriageways.
- **Physically segregated cycle provision**: traffic-free paths plus cycle tracks alongside roads, including side-specific provision. This is the default.
- **Any cycle provision**: everything above, plus painted lanes and shared bus lanes.
- **Dedicated walking routes**: footways, pedestrian streets and paths designated for walking.
- **Streets with pavements**: links explicitly recorded as having a pavement.

Each preset also excludes links the chosen mode is banned from, so a cycleway closed to cycles does not count towards cycle provision.

A preview line reports how much of the network your rule matched before you run anything. It is worth reading: a preset that matches almost nothing usually means the attribute is not recorded in your area, not that the provision does not exist.

**Caution**: The presets read what is recorded in the street network. A street with a cycle track that nobody has tagged will not qualify. If coverage looks wrong, check the preview and inspect a few streets in the street editor.

![](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-4.png?width=421&height=290&name=undefined-4.png)

### Step by Step

**1. Add basic information** such as a name and description that will be visible to viewers of the project.

2\. **Select a street network and a view** to analyse. The analysis uses the published network for that view, so unpublished edits made in the street editor are not included. Rebuild the network first if you want your latest changes analysed.

3\. **Choose the qualifying streets**, using a preset or a custom predicate, as described above.

4\. **Define your analysis zones.** Choose whether to build a bespoke set of analysis zones or import your own geographic areas. Bespoke analysis zones can be square or hexagonal, and the size of these can be adjusted using the square cell size (square grid) or the h3 resolution (hexagonal grid) options. Importing your own analysis zones (e.g., LSOAs) can be achieved by selecting the dataset from your Podaris instance, or importing the file from local storage.

**5. Set up the mesh density metrics.** Specify what sized street catchment (e.g. 200m), distance method (network vs straight line) and access modes (walk vs cycle) are used to compute the coverage measures.

**6.** **Add dataset queries (optional).** Connect up to five datasets and query them against the analysis zones, as in any other analysis, to turn a coverage percentage into a population figure. See[isochrone queries](https://support.podaris.com/isochrone-queries?hsLang=en).

**7. Fine-tune the calculations (optional).** Adjust the sample spacing, network snap cap and minimum gap area parameters if the defaults do not fit the study.

![mesh-setup](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/mesh-setup.png?width=670&height=416&name=mesh-setup.png)

### Interpreting results

![mesh-results](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/mesh-results.png?width=670&height=417&name=mesh-results.png)

The results page opens with headline figures about the qualifying network itself.

- **Qualifying length** is the total length of matched links, counting parallel carriageways and separately mapped links independently.
- **Area covered (%)** is the share of cell areas that are covered by the qualifying links and their street catchments.
- **Coverage gaps** is the number of within-cell areas that are not covered by the qualifying links (& their catchments). These are mapped as polygons when toggling the Overlay method from Coverage to Gaps.

The map displays the area coverage (%) values for the analysis zones, banded into values (0-20%, 20-40% etc.) and mapped from red to green. Toggling the measure method in the cell layer setup allows you to also display route length density values (km/km2) for the analysis zones.

The coverage by zone table displays the area covered values for each zone, with optional additional columns that can be added (and exported) - qualifying length, length density etc.

Any dataset queries appear as a table across the zones.

### Styling the results

Three layers can be styled independently in the display settings: the route coverage layer, the coverage gaps layer and the qualifying streets.

### Exporting results

Your analyses can be exported by clicking the project name, and **Export Analysis.** In addition to the Podaris project, mesh density offers five exports, two spatial and three tabular.

Each of the GIS exports can be downloaded as GeoJSON, Shapefile, KML or CSV, and opens directly in QGIS, ArcGIS and most other GIS software.

- **Coverage zones (GIS)**: the zones with the coverage area and route length density attributes ready for mapping.
- **Coverage zones (CSV):** same as above, but in tabular format with some useful attributes - useful for combining with other datasets.
- **Coverage gaps (GIS)**: polygons which represent the within-cell areas not covered by the qualifying links (and their catchments).
- **Coverage gaps (CSV):** same as above, but in tabular format with some useful attributes - useful for combining with other datasets.
- **Mesh density summary (CSV):** summary statistics for the Insight analysis performed, detailing specific parameters used in the mesh density run and key high level results (area coverage).

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