The project has indicated one optimal path from the airport to the US Embassy, but there could possibly be more. Furthermore, the data used for this analysis was solely based on IEDs. As mentioned before, this was to reduce the number of cases analyzed as well as focus on the random aspect of IEDs and other explosives. These can be located anywhere and strike at any time whereas crimes and direct fire are often targeted at certain people or groups. Of course, it is still advisable to avoid any risks by staying away from tempting target areas or areas where many people gather. If possible, it is best to not enter Iraq while the situation is still unstable.
An initial problem that rose up was the large area that the original DEM had covered. This was fixed by using the WINDOW module in IDRISI to zoom in and cut out the regions not in Baghdad. There were problems preparing the data in ArcMap to import into IDRISI, such as the way multiple features in a single layer are imported into IDRISI. Also, many components had to be manually given a new value in order for the COST module to work. For instance, ArcMap was able to display the number of cases per neighbourhood just fine, but IDRISI only keeps the polygons’ number. Thus, each polygon had to be assigned new values using an AVL file.
Another problem was the lack of ready-made shapefiles of the Baghdad street network and other essential components for the project. This resulted in most of the project time being used to digitize the major roads in Baghdad and the various points by tracing an Open Street map in ArcMap. Lastly, there were many software issues with ArcMap, where it kept crashing or stopped responding.