Database strategy for multiple circuits in conduit.

[ccoles]

Hi. I'm kinda new to GIS, but have learned a lot, and especially forums like this have certainly gotten me past a lot of tough spots.

I'm now trying to develop a GIS mapping of electrical circuits on an airport. It's a major airport and has a couple hundred circuits feeding the airfield electrical needs. I'm trying to develop a strategy to build the database, but I would like to be able to draw one line representing a conduit or conduit duct bank that has as many as 56 circuits running through it. Is there a simple way to tag a single entity, like a line for conduit or point for a manhole, with 56 tags to represent the circuits that run through them? The circuits are identified similar to AB-1A and the like.

My thinking was to build a boolean field for each circuit and a simple 0 or 1 to say if the circuit ran through it. However, this can get really messy with 200+ circuits. But I have maybe 400 manholes/junctions and over 5000 legs of conduit to cover. Can a single field entry handle a 56-count stack of 4-5 letter names and be searchable?

I'd like to hear any and all ideas from more experienced users. Thanks.