The problem with geographically imposed limitations might realistically be solved using a GIS platform that has some more sophisticated tools for solving this problem. It may be that you want to augment this with some other information that you have in the data, such as administrative area that the client is resident in being the same as the administrative area that the store is located in. Odd shaped coastlines, mountain ranges without roads through them, Political boundaries, etc. There is a major flaw with this approach and that is the assumption that there are no geograpical features or transport asset limitations that limit the access of a customer to the store that is closest proximity.Įxamples are geographies that contain islands, rivers with no bridges for long distances,
![sas geodist sas geodist](https://image1.slideserve.com/1690070/sas-maps-online-downloads-sashelp-zipcode-based-examples-l.jpg)
![sas geodist sas geodist](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sastraining/files/2018/06/texas_1-300x251.png)
![sas geodist sas geodist](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sascom/files/2018/05/sas_cities_lookup-1024x263.png)
There’s also a baked in function ‘GEODIST’ in SAS as well.