Creating routes with concatenated route identifiers
Route identifiers (IDs) can be made up of a single field in the route table or several fields. Coded value domain fields are supported as one or more fields in a concatenated route ID. When you create an LRS Network, you need to understand how your business tables are going to reference routes. Your route table must have a record for every unique route ID, which can mean a record for every unique combination of fields that might make up a route ID.
These records do not have to be unique in the route table as only the first instance of the ID encountered will be used, but each unique combination that makes up a route ID must be included. See Creating an LRS Network and Using concatenated route identifiers for more information about creating LRS Networks with concatenated route IDs in the Advanced Linear Referencing System (ALRS).
Because the Roads and Highways editing tools must insert values into fields in the route table to create a new route record, there are certain rules you must follow when creating concatenated route ID fields.
- Concatenated route IDs can either use a field separator or not, but all route IDs within a network must follow the same convention.
- Some LRS Networks may have concatenated fields with separators, and other LRS Networks may have concatenated fields without.
- If you do not use field separators, your field can be either fixed or variable length.
- If you will not fill the maximum length of a field when creating a route, you will need to add padding to fill the remaining characters
- The total length of your route IDs—with separators and empty spaces—in fields composing your concatenated route ID may not exceed the field used to store route IDs in your calibration point feature class.
When creating your LRS Network with a concatenated route ID, you have the option to allow fields to have padding added to the route ID for fields shorter than the maximum length. An example would be a route ID composed of three fields: State which is a string with length of 1, County which is a string with length of 3, and Section which is a short integer with length of 5. In this scenario the field County could have values ranging from 0 to 999. To ensure route ID for the network has the same number of characters for each route, a padding character of 0 could be added to the County field in the route ID. If a value of 1 for State, 7 for County, and 19245 for Section was entered when creating a route, 1 would be entered in the State field in the route table, 7 would be entered for the County field in the route table, 19245 would be entered for the Section field in the route table, but 100719245 would be entered as the route ID.
Similarly, you have the option to allow fields in the concatenated route ID to be null. Any field in the route ID can be null, however, if a field is null, then all the fields to the right in the route ID must also be null. An example would be a route ID composed of three fields: RouteType which is a string with length of 1, Route which is a short integer with length of 5, and RampNumber which is a string with a length of 2. Some of the routes that will created will not have a RampNumber, therefore, that field can be configured to be null when creating your LRS Network. If a value of 3 for RouteType, 26645 for Route, and nothing for RampNumber was entered when creating a route, 3 would be entered for the RouteType field in the route table, 26645 would be entered for the Route field in the route table, <null> would be entered for the RampNumber field in the route table, and 326645 would be entered as the route ID.
- Start ArcMap and set up your editing environment to start editing LRS Networks that use concatenated route IDs.
- Set your target LRS Network layer on the Roads And Highways Editing toolbar.
- Click the Choose Centerlines button on the Roads And Highways Editing toolbar and click a centerline in the map at the location of the new route.
- Click the Create Route button on the Roads And Highways Editing toolbar.The Create Route dialog box appears.
- Click the Start Date drop-down arrow to select a start date for the route.
The time is automatically populated with 12:00:00 AM by default.
- Click the browse button next to the Route ID text box.
The RouteId dialog box appears and shows the fields that have been configured to construct route IDs. The dialog box will be slightly different depending on whether a field separator, coded value domain, or padding for fields is used. As you populate the dialog box, the route ID will appear at the top.
- Populate the route ID field text boxes.
When no field separator or padding is used
Enter a value into each route ID field, ensuring each text box is completely filled.
When no field separator is used with padding
Enter a value into each route ID field, if you use less than the maximum number of characters, padding will be added
When a coded value domain is used
Choose the domain value from the list of domains in the drop down.
When a field separator is used with or without padding
Enter a value into each field that makes up the route ID.
When you begin adding numbers to the route ID field text boxes, you will see that the numbers to the right of the text boxes begin to count up.
- When you complete each of the fields in the route ID, click OK.
- Finish completing the Create Route dialog box and click OK to complete the route.