Draw the model the office will rerun each time a station opens: the steps that turn the two layers on the canvas into the report table, joined by arrows the way the data goes, each step handing its result to the next.
The model has to do everything the two figures depend on:
Each step on the palette is named for what it does, not for one program's tool, so a tool that does several things at once is drawn as the steps it does. A map of the station areas beside the table is welcome and is not graded. Give a step a name or a note if it makes your method clearer: notes are kept with your answer and never scored.
The drawing is graded on the routes the two layers take to the table, and on every step leading to what is delivered; the area figure itself is checked when you run the model in the next step. You hand in the diagram.
A planning office on the island of Montréal publishes two figures each time a rail station opens: how much of the island lies within the station areas, and how many residents live there. The Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal's metropolitan plan, the Plan métropolitain d'aménagement et de développement (PMAD, 2012), draws transit-oriented development (TOD) areas around the stations of its structuring transit network, the CMM's TOD planning guide applies the plan's residential density thresholds within 1 km of each station, and the Observatoire Grand Montréal reviewed the plan's targets in 2023 (Cahiers métropolitains no 11). The office uses that radius around every metro, REM and commuter-rail station in service, and the 2021 census for the residents. The network keeps growing: the REM opened its Deux-Montagnes branch in November 2025 and its Anse-à-l'Orme branch in May 2026, its airport branch is due in 2027 and the metro's Blue Line extension in 2031. So the office wants the method written down once, as a model it can rerun, and then the figures for the network open on 16 October 2026.
The office's model starts from two layers, both in WGS 84 (EPSG:4326), in the Data tab as GeoJSON, a zipped Shapefile, KML and CSV:
| Layer | Geometry | Fields |
|---|---|---|
stations | Points, one per station per network | name (text), network (metro, rem or train), status (open or construction, as of 16 October 2026) |
census-areas | Polygons, the 2021 census dissemination areas of census division 2466, drawn to the shoreline | dauid (text, the area's 8-digit identifier), population (whole number, 2021 Census) |
Both cover the island of Montréal and the islands of the same census division; stations off it, in Laval, Longueuil and Brossard, are already left out.
What the office reports, for the network as it stands:
| Figure | What it is | Unit |
|---|---|---|
station_area_km2 | The area of the station areas: the ground covered by the 1 km circles around every open station, overlaps counted once, the whole circles, water included, not cut to the census areas | km² |
station_area_residents | The residents of the station areas: each census area's population taken in proportion to the share of its own area that lies inside the station areas, summed over every census area | residents |
The rules both figures follow:
status is open. A station under construction joins the figures when it opens, which is why the office keeps the method as a model it can rerun.Any GIS will do: ArcGIS Pro, QGIS or a script. What you hand in is graded, never the tool you made it with.
These are where the teaching is. Read them twice.
Modelled on the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal's own planning documents: the "Guide d'aménagement pour les aires de TOD (Transit Oriented Development)", filed with the BAPE as document DB42, which says to apply the PMAD's residential density thresholds « dans un rayon de 1km de la station », and the Observatoire Grand Montréal's Cahiers métropolitains no 11, "Les cibles du PMAD, bilan 2023" (May 2023), its review of the plan's targets; and on Esri's ArcGIS Pro 3.7 documentation: the quick-start "Make a geoprocessing model" (Pairwise Buffer into Summarize Within), "Summarize Within (Analysis Tools)" ("Polygon summary features are summarized using the areal proportions of the input features"), "Pairwise Buffer (Analysis Tools)", "Clip (Analysis Tools)" and "ModelBuilder vocabulary", and on the ArcGIS Pro Associate 2025 exam's "Create a model for a repeatable process". Station status from the STM, the REM and CDPQ Infra as of 16 October 2026. The planning office is illustrative. Modelled on Esri's documentation; Kharita is not affiliated with Esri.
8 scored, 0 informational
Only the stations in service reach the figures
15%Station areas drawn the way the plan draws them
15%Ground near two stations counted once
10%The station areas meet the census areas
15%A census area partly inside is not counted whole
15%The figures are computed and delivered
10%Every part is joined into one model
10%Every input is used and every step leads to what is delivered
10%