What Should an Event Layer Be?

[GIS_Flunky]

I am having difficulty understanding event layers for ESRI R&H.

Are they supposed to be treated like normal feature layers, where I can update the attributes whenever I want? Think something like a condition on an asset (culverts), where the asset is an event layer and I want to update the condition on 1 or multiple assets in the event layer, so the symbology changes.

Or do I just draw the asset from point to point along the roadway and never really update it? It just shows along the roadway and I know where the culvert is. 

[KyleGonterwitz]

my opinion is you should draw the culverts as a line from point to point, or maybe simply a point where the culvert intersects the route.  If you need to know where the culverts are along the highway in the R&H database, use the location of the culvert point, line to intersect, and locate the route/measure of the culvert point of intersection along the highway.  

If you wanted to look at the condition along the culvert you could support linear referencing along the length of the culvert, but that culvert would not be a road or a highway, so you might just want to use traditional linear referencing or a water resources application like HY-8 for that. 

[RyanKoschatzky]

I agree with Kyle that something like culverts is better as a point feature class in R&H. I would probably add fields for condition, length and pipe bearing to know the direction.

R&H does well with events on or along the road ie direction, turn lane. Events perpendicular or types that change along with road like sound walls or ROW just don’t plot well. 

[GIS_Flunky]

If I add a field for condition, is that a field I could update continuously? Like would I use Field Maps to go out and assess the culvert in Roads and Highways as an event layer and update the condition on the culvert overwriting the condition score and not creating a new event?

[AyanPalit]

@GIS_Flunky  As noted by others, there are multiple ways to model this. But once modelled, you can use ArcGIS Apps like Field Maps or a web app that supports LRS event editing to update  business attributes like condition. I am thinking route/measure is not changing in this workflow.

[RyanKoschatzky · Accepted solution]

I haven’t played with field maps to know how the  it would work with R&H. I would suspect it would be a new record since R&H is time aware. It’s a business decision but I would want a new record. That way over time I could analyze what has happened to the culvert between time slices/ inspections. You would have one record with a null ToDate and one with a date after the next inspection. You can remove the date definition query from the layer to see all time or use the time slider to see retired records.

Hope that helps.