Wouldn't it be useful if...

[3LeggedDog]

Wouldn't it be good if Microsoft had a deal worked out with mapquest which would allow them to create a function that would take in two zip codes, or two addresses even, and calculate the driving distance between them, based on whatever is in Mapquest's databases?

Note: I don't need anyone to work on anything that would do that, since it doesn't relate to any problem that I'm working on, I was just throwing it out there.

-3LD

 

[RalphA]

Surely, there must be thousands of possible functions that people could want, if one takes the time to think about it. And, I'm sure that many of these already exist. The main problem is to be able to find them in a timely manner! It's the old problem of Information Retrieval, and it really is a very complicated problem. One usually solves the problem of "how to do it" by

1. Asking people you know.
2. Asking Google
3. Asking MrExcel
4. Thinking about it and reinventing the wheel
5. Telling your emploee-genius to figure it out for you.
6. Other ways too numerous to list here.

After all, if we combine all the knowledge of the world, we have the terribly difficult problem of how do we get an answer back that fits our need? Just think about it for a few minutes!

 

[Greg Truby]

Mapquest already does that. Just use their Directions To or Direction From feature.

 

[RalphA]

Greg, I thought the 3LeggedDog wanted an Excel function to do the trick! Otherwise, why in the world would he be posting his question here?

 

[3LeggedDog]

I don't need one to do it, I'm not working on anything that would use it. The reason that I was thinking about it is that yesterday I was watching a group presentation where they talked about calculating a bunch of distances using Mapquest individually, for each pair of points, and I thought how much easier it would have been if they could have done that using Excel. I have no need for such a function, and I don't expect for anyone to try to solve it. I was just throwing out the idea that for some future version of Excel, it would be neat if they worked with Mapquest, or whatever Microsoft's equivalent software is, to make calculating driving distances simple. This is the sort of thing that could help out small businesses that want to easily get an estimate of a whole bunch of shipping costs without having to enter queries in Mapquest over and over. I worked on a class project in the fall that would have benefited from this. When I'm on a different computer, I may post a part of one of the sheets that I used, to give a better idea of what I mean.

-3LD

 

[Greg Truby]

Ah. There is software for stuff like that all over the place in the logistics industry. I'm not up-to-date on the latest route-planning software packages, but you can bet every carrier that's still solvent uses it. I'm not familiar with any Excel addins for it. I've only ever seen stand-alone packages -- but it's been a few years since I've thumbed through a logistics trade rag so who knows what's on the market now-a-days.

 

[adam_neb]

Two mileage programs that spring to mind are Rand McNally MileMaker & ALK's PC Miler. Both programs have excel addins that allow the user to calculate miles, etc. I cannot imaging any logistics company using both, or at least one, of those packages.
There are less expensive programs, but Rand and PC Miler are the two standards (can there be more than one standard?).

Adam

 

[Greg Truby]

I was going to mention PC Miler, since my old company had used that a bit. But that was over ten years ago and I wasn't sure if it was still around.

 

[Oaktree]

You can also get a mapping of zip code to latitude/longitudes (I believe the USPS can provide) and make a UDF (or use a series of calculations) to calculate the distances that way...if you choose to go that route, you can Google your way to the lat/lon --> dist calculation.

 

[Barry Katcher]

What I would really like to see is the ability to enter the two zip codes, plus a third cell with a brief description of my urologists diagnosis of my kidney-bladder functions, and have Excel calculate how many pit stops will be needed on the journey. Then, upload it to Mapquest and have it show little urinal icons at all the available Dunkin' Donuts along the route.