Water Utility Network Rules allow Water Line Service to connect to Water Line Service?

Question

By default, will the water utility network rules allow a Water Line subtype Service to be connected to another Water Line subtype Service? Our system has several service laterals which split into two services, or are tapped off hydrant or fire service laterals. If this is not allowed by default, would the best solution be to remove that rule, or to model our data differently?

Jon_D · Answer

@GavinRunyon While it sounds as though it has the potential to cause confusion when placing trace locations and  interpreting trace results due to the duplication of features, the current method of modeling would not flag these as errors as the two lines would not technically be connected, each would remain modeled as its own edge feature.

GavinRunyon · Answer

Thanks Jon for the detailed explanation, that helps a lot. Currently, we have the top two examples modeled with overlapping lateral lines which connect all the way back to the main. When creating a new utility network, will it construct these as a single complex edge feature, or will they be flagged as errors?

Jon_D · Answer

When you have an edge (line) connected to another edge midspan, as long as they share the same AG/AT the same principle applies because we are focused on edge elements instead of the line (edge) feature itself. In scenario 1 and 3, a system junction is placed (hidden) midspan on the line, updating the line to be composed of multiple edge elements.  So, in this scenario the two edge elements share the same endpoint.

For connectivity to be established midspan in the first place you need to ensure the line feature supports midspan connectivity by setting the edge connectivity policy for the AG/AT.

A picture using your example 3 might explain it better:

Another way of looking at it.  When a line in the utility network has another feature connected midspan, it creates another edge element for the line.  Edge elements compose the logical component of edge (or line) features in a utility network. A complex edge (which all UN line features are)... is a feature is associated with a set of junction and edge elements in the logical network.

Hope that helps to clarify.