How to Append Routes with multiple centerlines?

[MirekGroen]

Hi Community!

We are trying to append routes to a LRS in ArcGIS Pro (3.2) by using the Append Routes Geoprocessing tool. Prior to appending, we have a set of centerlines with known routeids, but this is a many to 1 relation between centerlines and routes. In other words, each route contains at least 1, but often multiple centerlines.

If we append the centerlines directly to the centerline feature class within the LRS containing, we are able to use 'Create Route' process (Location Referencing tab -> Routes group). Here it is possible to select one or more centerlines and define a RouteName.

The result of this process is a LRS Network Feature Class with 1 new route, a Centerline Sequence tabel with 56 new rows with 56 unique centerlineIds referring to the same RouteId.

But since we have to add routes for country level areas - we are talking about over 100.000 routes - we would like to create routes in an automated way. I know it is possible to use the Append Routes tool, but this tool expects unique RouteId values. This means that we have to dissolve the centerlines on the routeId field before appending the routes, but this adds a new centerline for each route instead of reusing the individual centerlines from the centerline feature class.

Are we missing something here, or is it simply not possible with the current tools to add routes with multiple centerlines in an automated way (with the standard tools from the location referencing toolbox)?

[AyanPalit · Accepted solution]

@MirekGroen The Append Routes tool has seen several enhancements including use of existing centerlines (screenshot below).

When considering existing centerlines, this tool associates routes with existing centerlines in the target LRS dataset that have an exact geometry match with the source routes. If the centerline that you append to a route does not have a CenterlineID value, one is created, and a centerline sequence record is added. If a CenterlineID value exists where you append a route, the existing centerline sequence record is updated with the appended route's RouteID value.

[MirekGroen]

Hi Ayan,

Thanks for your reply. Upgrading to ArcGIS Pro 3.3 solved the issue! I can see that the 'Consider existing centerlines' option became available with the latest release of ArcGIS Pro and it works pretty well. I can upload a route that is a dissolve of multiple centerlines and if the centerlines are already in the centerline feature class they will be re-used.

Just out of curiousity, are there any plans in the future for the developing the append routes tool, so you can append a route that consists of multiple features (that have the same routeId)? Our work-around right now is that we first append the centerlines to the centerline feature class and directly after run the Append Routes tool to append a dissolved centerline feature class (based on a common RouteId).

[AyanPalit]

@MirekGroen Glad the enhancement works for your use case!

Append Routes tool does support loading of routes that consists of multiple centerline features. The required data conditions stated in the tool documentation.

Typical steps:

1. Prep the centerline and route data to meet the data criteria.
2. Load multiple centerline features using Append tool
3. Load routes using Append Routes tool with 'Consider existing centerlines' option
4. Proceed with other steps like loading calibration points, events etc.