Tableau | Data visualisation | Analytics | Spatial Tableau Drive Time Selection: How It Works
I can't believe this is in a BI tool. What a flex.
0:00This feature from Tableau is such a flex.
0:03Literally no other BI tool can do this.
0:05I've got the buffer selection capability.
0:08I've done a video on this before.
0:10using the 2015 New York tree census.
0:13And I'm going to use this data because it's a good way to demo this capability.
0:17Here I have a buffer capability and you can see that if I just change the radius here I expand the radius of my selection
0:23and it selects all the objects that meet that criteria.
0:26Now one of the things you'd want to do if you're using a map is use the information that's available in the map to do the selection, specifically drive time analysis.
0:36Check this out.
0:37If I go to the second sheet, you'll see I already have a selection here and I didn't make this selection manually.
0:43I used the new drive time selection tool.
0:45To show you where to get that, just go over here to the top left
0:48Go to this second to last option, you'll see it has a little clock and it has a shortcut the letter T.
0:54And what it allows you to do, just look at this part of the screen on the left.
0:57If I just start dragging
0:58It draws a drive time radius on your selection and then also shows you the route that it would take, the shortest route it would take.
1:06Now there's obviously a criteria behind this, but
1:09That is absolutely wild.
1:10And by the way, I have over 683,000 marks on this sheet.
1:16This is just not possible in any other BI tool.
1:18If you have a BI tool that can do this many marks and that analysis at the same time out of the box for free, let me know.
1:25Anyway, this data set here, this is New York.
1:28Obviously, if you know geography, you'll you'll be able to tell this is New York
1:32This is every single tree in New York based on the 2015 census.
1:36And so all I've done is I've just put it back on there as a way of showing you that you can do the selection on actual data points
1:43So if I plot, actually if I zoom out a little bit, let's just zoom out and and um there are a lot of marks on this, so I want to bring Central Park in here because you can kind of see that very clearly.
1:53Um there are obviously s uh trees in Central Park, but they don't do that in the census because it's the park.
2:00What they're actually doing in the census is tracking trees outside of the park.
2:03So
2:03If I just start to draw a circle here, you can see that even on this many marks, the drive time analysis, I think my my MacBook Air is absolutely creaking, and I'm only in a MacBook Air, I'm not in a MacBook Pro, anything advanced.
2:14I've just got a basic MacBook Air here running this analysis.
2:18And it's able to crunch half a million records, over half a million records, and still make the selection based on that selection that I made.
2:26Now
2:26There is a few things I would love it to do uh that would make this feature just like absolutely perfect.
2:32Because you know me, nothing's perfect until it's absolutely right.
2:35When you make the selection, it shows you the drive time that you've got here.
2:39And it's it's a little bit sort of picky to draw this.
2:42And I wish you could make the selection and store the value that it's essentially got there.
2:47So the 10 minutes, the 30 minutes
2:49whatever it is available somewhere so you can actually store that as a value.
2:54I'd love to store it in a parameter, I'd love to store it in other bits of Tableau, maybe sets, whatever it is
3:00I'd just love to be able to use that number.
3:02I am not aware of a specific way to do that.
3:04So if you know, let me know in the comments.
3:06But needless to say, this selection tool is absolutely fantastic.
3:10Like the other selection tools have always been good.
3:12We've always been able to do a radius like so.
3:14And you see that draws much, much faster.
3:17But to be able to do drive time analysis on a map
3:21with uh with data in Tableau for free is absolutely wild.
3:27And I say for free because there's a new addition of Tableau Desktop.
3:30It's called desktop free edition.
3:31It essentially means you can use all of the capability of desktop without paying for license.
3:36Uh the only restrictions you can't use it in partnership with Tableau Cloud, which is essentially the enterprise feature.
3:41So if you are going to use this for business needs
3:42you're going to need Tableau Cloud.
3:44But needless to say, you can use it for pretty much everything else, your projects.
3:47Anyone in your team who just wants to mess around with desktop, build their own analysis on their machine and do it and save it locally and connect to databases.
3:54It's all available.
3:56It's wild.
3:56And this is one of those features that just makes you realize we are so lucky to have this capability in a BI tool.
4:02Here we are, Year of the Lore 2026.
4:04It's available.
4:05Enjoy.
4:06Thanks for watching.
4:06I'll see you in the next one.
Tableau's map selection tools now include drive time analysis, letting you select all marks reachable within a certain travel time from a point, directly on a map view with hundreds of thousands of marks and no extra cost.
Tim demos this on a dataset of over 683,000 tree records mapped across New York, previously used to show radius-based buffer selection.
- Radius/buffer selection as the baseline 0:00
You can already select map marks by drawing a radius and expanding it, which selects everything within that distance. This is the simpler, faster selection method to reach for when you just need distance-based filtering rather than travel time.
- Where to find drive time selection 0:43
The tool sits in the top-left toolbar as the second-to-last selection option (a clock icon, shortcut key T). Selecting it and dragging on the map draws a drive time boundary and shows the actual route it would take, rather than a simple radius.
- It works on real geographic data at scale 1:25
You can run this drive time selection directly against real data points plotted on a map, not just an abstract shape, and it still performs the calculation live as you drag - useful when you want your selection to respect actual geography.
- It handles large mark counts even on modest hardware 2:00
Tim runs this against over half a million marks on a basic MacBook Air and the tool still calculates the drive time selection interactively. This suggests you don't need high-end hardware or a scaled-down dataset to use this feature.
- No way (yet) to capture the drive time value 2:26
When you draw a selection, Tableau shows you the drive time figure (e.g. 10 or 30 minutes) but there's currently no known way to store that value in a parameter, set, or elsewhere for reuse - Tim flags this as a gap he'd like fixed.
- Available for free via Tableau Desktop Free Edition 3:22
This capability is included in Tableau's free desktop edition, so you get full desktop functionality without a licence, provided you don't need to pair it with Tableau Cloud. For business/enterprise use with cloud publishing, you'll still need Tableau Cloud.
- There's no built-in way to store or reuse the drive time value from a selection (e.g. in a parameter or set) - you can see it on screen but not capture it programmatically, as far as Tim knows.
- Desktop Free Edition gives you full desktop capability but can't be used in partnership with Tableau Cloud, so business/team publishing still requires a paid Cloud license.
- Uses relatime route queries. see docs here: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/maps_drivetime.htm
Reach for this when your map analysis genuinely depends on travel time rather than straight-line distance - for example scoping which locations, customers or assets fall within a realistic driving radius of a point.
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