Creating a new shapefile to store routes

The following steps outline how you can create a new shapefile to store routes.

1. Right-click the folder in the Catalog tree in which you want to create a new shapefile, point to New, then click Shapefile.
2. Type a name for the new shapefile.
3. Click the Feature Type drop-down arrow and click Polyline.
4. Check Coordinates will contain M values.
5. Click Edit to define the shapefile's coordinate system.

When you are finished setting the shapefile's coordinate system (step 7), you return to this dialog box.

6. Click Select, Import, or New to set the shapefile's spatial reference.
7. Click OK.
8. Click OK to create the shapefile.
9. Right-click the feature class in the Catalog tree and click Properties.

This opens the Properties dialog box, so you can add the route identifier field to the shapefile.

10. Click the Fields tab.
11. Click the next blank row in the Field Name column and type a name for the route identifier field.
12. Click in the Data Type column next to the new field's name and click its data type.
13. Click in the Field Properties list and type the properties for the new field.
14. Repeat steps 10 through 13 until all the fields for the shapefiles have been defined.
15. Click OK.

Tip:

• It is recommended that you create an attribute index on the route identifier field. You can do this by checking the route identifier you created on the Shapefile Properties Indexes tab. This index will improve dynamic segmentation performance.
• The integer field ID is a default field and can be deleted once another field has been added to the shapefile.