Source VS Sink tier tanks

[esri_gasN]

Hi GIS folks,

I have a question about Tier ranks and Types of subnetwork controllers. As I understand, 'Source type' refers to the resource flow from the controller (Gas/Water distribution company) to the consumers. We have tier ranks, such as Transmission (Rank 1), which supplies flow to Distribution (Rank 2).

But what about the 'Sink'? As I understand it, 'Sink' represents the flow of resources traveling from consumers to the company, such as Waste/Stormwater. In this case, should the Consumers' tiers (or Distribution) be assigned Rank 1, while the Transmission tier should be given Rank 2?

[RobertKrisher · Accepted solution]

In a sink-based network, the 'highest rank' tier is the ultimate destination for resources in your network. So, for a sewer utility network, the wastewater treatment plant is a subnetwork controller for the sewer collection system (tier 1). Any of the sewershed areas within the sewer collection system are tier 2. The current stormwater model only has a single tier, but if it did have two tiers then the terminal discharge points in your system would be tier 1 and any minor outfalls would be tier 2.

Ranks are discussed in several pages in the documentation (Tiers—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation, Network hierarchies with tiers—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation). We'll work on making the documentation more precisely differentiating the language for source-based and sink-based domain networks.

[MikeMillerGIS]

Also, this changes depending on if you are hierarchical or partitioned.

The concept of downstream/upstream tier ranks is irrelevant in hierarchical. As each lower tier(higher number) is a subset of the parent tier(in a tier group). Isolation(3) is subset of Pressure(2), which is a subset of System(1).  Different rank tiers are not adjacent to each other as they are in partitioned.

Upstream and Downstream in hierarchical should only ever being traced in the same tier(no target tier).  We use a target tier of a different rank today to allow us to trace adjacent subnetworks. There is a back log item to provide better control over how we trace adjacent subnetworks in the same tier which would help when building out a Gathering, Transmission, Distribution subnetwork in the same tier(System tier).