topic Re: Water Utility Network Rules allow Water Line Service to connect to Water Line Service? in ArcGIS Utility Network Questions

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

GavinRunyon — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 16:39:08 GMT

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?

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

JonDeRose — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 16:56:51 GMT

@GavinRunyon If two edge elements share the same endpoint and have the same Asset group and Asset type, these features can connect without a user-defined intermediate junction or network rule. In this situation, a system junction is created and connectivity is established when the network topology is validated or enabled.

If I understood your question properly, it sounds like your Water Line subtype Services share the same Asset group and Asset type. As a result they could be connected to each other without the creation of a specific network rule to model the split.

The feature restrictions topic covers this in a little more detail.

Thanks,

Jon

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

GavinRunyon — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 17:10:56 GMT

Thanks for the response. If I understand the feature restrictions correctly, I think my second snip above would be satisfied by creating three features. One connecting from the main to the split, then one connecting from the split to each service connection? However in the first and third examples, the features don't share a common endpoint. Will it allow a feature of the same asset group and asset type to be attached to the edge?

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

JonDeRose — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:57:17 GMT

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.

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

GavinRunyon — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 20:29:08 GMT

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?

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

JonDeRose — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 12:08:44 GMT

@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.