A collection edge is a street segment between two intersections. This is the unit for assigning stops to routes.
A waste collection vehicle should not make a turn of any kind along a collection edge. Therefore, if a waste collection vehicle enters the collection edge to pick up residential waste bins, it will continue collecting through the whole edge.
All stops on the left and right sides of the street segment belong to that collection edge. All stops on that collection edge should have matching collection mode values. This indicates to the solver whether the collection edge needs to be traversed once, servicing stops on both sides of the street together, or twice, servicing stops on each side separately.
Define a collection edge on the network dataset
A collection edge can include multiple network dataset edges. In the image below, streets are shown as line features, and junctions for this network are the diamonds. A collection edge is indicated by the bracket. Note that this collection edge goes from one intersection to another. It also spans a two-valent junction. Collection edges stop at intersections because a vehicle may make a turn there.
Pre-assignment of stops on a collection edge
The waste collection solver supports assigning collection edges to specific routes. This is accomplished by specifying AssignmentRule, RouteName, and Sequence on one or more stops on that collection edge.
When providing a pre-assignment for the routing, a single stop on a collection edge is sufficient to indicate the edge should follow the pre-assignment if the collection mode is both sides. However, if the collection mode is to collect that street edge one side at a time, a single stop on each side of the street would be needed. This is true for AnchorRule, AssignmentRule, and RouteName. If more than one stop on a collection edge indicates an AnchorRule, AssignmentRule, or RouteName, they must match; otherwise, it is ambiguous how to collect that full collection edge.
It is also true that a single stop (or one on each side of the street) is sufficient to indicate the sequencing of edges. However, if all the stops are sequenced on the collection edge, it can also indicate the direction of travel down the street when collecting both sides of the street together. The solver also only looks at the lowest sequence value on a collection edge when determining the sequence for the edge.