Can routes be defined in LRS dataset without using calibration points?

Question

The Essential Roads and Highways vocabulary from the ArcGIS Roads and Highways documentation says that a Calibration point is:

A point feature that defines the measure for a specific location on an LRS route. Roads and Highways uses calibration points to define the measures on the routes. The measures between two calibration points on a route are derived by linear interpolation.

Does this mean that the start and end measures of a centerline in an LRS dataset are only stored in the Calibration_Point feature class:

and never in the Centerline feature class?

The reason I ask is because I think that suggests that to create an LRS dataset from a line feature class with from and to measure fields (and a route ID), which does not need an accompanying point feature class to create a route feature class, will need me to create points corresponding to the start and end nodes of those lines with the measure and route ID as a first step. If I'm understanding that correctly it's something that I don't think I've seen documented anywhere.

Answer 1

A Roads and Highways implementation requires a minimum schema made up of a Centreline feature class, a route network, calibration points and a centreline sequence table.

For more information on the LRS Data Model here is the Esri Help. https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/production/roads-highways/lrs-data-model.htm

Here are some additional links that might help you get started

2021 User Conference Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ztQ54ZsTM

Online Training: https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/621ea031a53818015ee38b4e/arcgis-roads-and-highways%3A-introduction-to-modeling-and-data-management-in-a-desktop-environment/

Online Training: https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/627a8ac4df3f353e516b3de0/arcgis-roads-and-highways%3A-preparing-and-sharing-an-lrs-using-arcgis-enterprise/

Answer 2

I think the answer to my own question is that a Calibration_point feature class is needed in an LRS dataset because its Measure field values need to be read in order to create routes in the LRSNetwork feature class from the centerlines.

I think that is the case because the Essential Roads and Highways vocabulary says that:

Routes are polyline features that contain m-measures and are built on centerlines that are polyline features that do not contain m-measures.

The Essential Roads and Highways vocabulary also says that a calibration point is:

A point feature that defines the measure for a specific location on an LRS route. Roads and Highways uses calibration points to define the measures on the routes. The measures between two calibration points on a route are derived by linear interpolation.

However, if I am correct, then I am surprised that the Create LRS Network (Location Referencing) tool does not have both the Calibration_point and the Centerline feature classes as input parameters.