You create routes from existing lines using the Create Routes tool in the Linear Referencing toolbox.
The input feature classes can be any supported format. This includes coverage, shapefile, personal, file, and enterprise geodatabases and CAD data.
The linear features used as input are merged to create a single route. A field must be specified in the source dataset that has a route ID for each line feature. Features with the same route ID value will be merged as a multipart line in the route feature class that is created.
As the input linear features are merged, the route measures are determined in one of three ways:
- The geometric lengths of the input features are used to accumulate the measures.
- A value stored in a measure field is used to accumulate the measures.
- The values stored in from- and to-measure fields are used to set the measures.
With the first two options, you choose whether the output routes will have continuous measures when there are disjointed parts.
Also with the first two options, you control the direction in which measures are assigned to the routes by specifying the coordinate priority of the starting measure. The coordinate priority can be upper left, upper right, lower left, or lower right. These options are determined by placing the minimum bounding rectangle around the input features that are going to be merged to create one route.
The output routes can be written to a shapefile or a geodatabase feature class.