Event behavior

Available with Location Referencing license.

Events are located along a route in a linear referencing system (LRS). Changes in the route due to route editing activities such as extend, realign, reassign, retire, cartographic realignment, and calibration have a direct impact on how the events are located and how they are rendered on a map. Behavior changes with measure or geographic location, or both, on one or more events due to route editing are called event behavior.

ArcGIS Pipeline Referencing keeps event measures and geographic location (x,y), in alignment with route edits. You can configure event behavior rules for an individual event layer to define how event measures and shapes are updated for each type of route edit.

In the following example, a portion of Route1 will be retired. The edit activity will affect Event1.

Before retirement

After the route is retired, events are updated using event behavior rules that are set at the event layer level.

After retirement

Types of event behavior rules

When an LRS route is edited, behavior rules are applied to the events. By configuring event behavior rules at the layer level, you can choose how the event reacts when the route changes: preserve location, preserve measure, or maintain referent location.

Pipeline Referencing supports the following event behaviors:

Event behavior rulesDescription

Stay Put

Preserves the geographic location of the event; measures may change.

Move

Preserves the measure or measures of the event; geographic location may change.

Retire

Preserves both measure and geographic location; event is retired.

Snap

Preserves the location of an event by snapping the event to a reassigned or abandoned route; measure or measures may change.

Honor Route Measure

Preserves the measure of the event or changes the measure proportionally to the route measure change.

To understand how LRS events get updated due to the route edit type for each event behavior rule, see the following:

Configuration of event behavior rules

Default event behavior is configured during the event registration process when using either the Create LRS Event or Create LRS Event From Existing Dataset geoprocessing tools.

The following event behavior rules are set by default:

ActivityRules

Calibrate Route

Stay Put

Retire Route

Stay Put

Extend Route

Stay Put

Reassign Route

Stay Put

Realign Route

Stay Put

You can modify the default behavior for route calibration, route retirement, route extension, route reassignment, and route realignment using the Modify Event Behavior Rules geoprocessing tool.

Application of event behavior

To apply event behaviors, after route edits, execute the Apply Event Behaviors geoprocessing tool for the route network. This tool processes event behaviors for all event feature classes registered to the route network.

The Apply Event Behaviors geoprocessing tool does not need to run after each route edit activity. Since it is a geoprocessing tool, you can schedule it to run based on your business requirements. It only processes event behaviors for those routes that have been edited but not yet processed.

Events that span routes on a line network

Pipeline Referencing supports events that span routes when those routes are on the same line in a line network. In cases where an event spans multiple routes on the same line, route editing impacts events on that line. The impact that your edits have on events that span routes depends on the configured event behavior.

For example, in the diagram below, route editing impacts both events once event behaviors are applied.

Route1, Route2, Route3, and Route4 are part of the same line. Event1 spans Route1 and ends in Route3, while Event2 starts in Route3 and ends in Route4. A portion of routes 2 and 3 are retired from measures 18 to 32.

Before retirement

Once event behaviors are updated, the result of the route edit affects both Event1 and Event2. In the following example, Stay Put has been applied.

After retirement