Linear Referencing

I used ArcGIS Pro 2.9.3 to solve this problem. The main geoprocessing tools that I used include “Make Route Event Layer” and “Overlay Route Events”. There are five data files provided by the class, which are geodatabase data of routes in Pitt County, tabular data of accidents, tabular data of pavements, shapefiles of cities, and shapefiles of the county boundary.

First, I input all data files into ArcGIS Pro. Under Customize the Ribbon, I created a new tab of “Linear Referencing” with 3 new groups of Routes, Events, and Add-In tools. Within Routes, I added Calibrate Routes, Create Routes, and Locate Features Along Routes. Within Events, I added Dissolve Route Events, Make Route Event Layer, Overlay Route Events, and Transform Route Events. I downloaded the custom Add-In Tools from GitHub. I then added Identify Route Locations and Set From/To Measures within the tab of Add-In Tools. These tools can then be accessed easily from the ribbon. I then explored the route data and used “Identify Route Locations” to better understand the characteristics of the route data.

Then I used “Make Route Event Layer” for both accident events data and pavement events data, with accident data as a point event type and pavement data as a line event type. This process also transformed the tabular data into event layers. In order to calculate the length of the segments, I exported the pavement events layer as a table and used Calculate Field to calculate segment length. Then I used Overlay Route Events to intersect both the accident events layer and the new pavement table. Then I used Make Route Event Layer again to transform the intersection results into an event layer. Then I calculated the number of accidents per mile to compare it with pavement conditions.

Linear Referencing is a helpful tool to learn, especially when analyzing data that were collected using mile points on roads or marks on streams. A possible scenario would be an urban ecologist who needs help investigating how traffic noise and the number of lanes (road width) affect urban bird diversity in Wake County.

Problem description: As a GIS specialist, I am asked to perform linear referencing to prepare and process the data in mile points and bird species richness data.

Data needed: Tabular data of bird species richness with GPS coordinates, traffic noise data that were collected using mile points on traffic routes without GPS information, and data on the number of lanes formatted as an event line type within traffic route data.

Analysis procedures: I will input route data from Wake County and use “Make Route Event Layer” to turn the events tables into event layers. Then I will use “Overlay Route Events” to intersect both noise and lane data. Then I can compare urban bird diversity with different background traffic noise and the number of lanes.