Utility Safety Partners’ Locating & Marking Standard

By Mike Sullivan, President, Utility Safety Partners

Over the past decade, advancements in technology and mapping have improved the way locate requests are submitted to one-call/notification centres. Today, and like so many other services that have migrated to an online interface, the vast majority of locate requests in Canada are submitted via the web. The process isn’t only convenient, it reduces damage to buried utilities. 

At the same time, there have also been advancements that are reducing the number of notifications to buried utility owners. Yet, despite reduced notifications, buried energy and utility owners continue struggling to maintain legislated or best practice response times to carry out the locating and marking process. Compounding the struggle is the seasonal nature of construction in Alberta, forcing most digging activity into a seven-month window.

Once a buried utility owner is notified of a ground disturbance in the vicinity of their buried assets, the locate request is triaged to confirm whether a locate is required or if a site meeting or additional documentation, such as a proximity or crossing agreement, is required. In some cases, the proposed ground disturbance can proceed without a locate but with the above-mentioned improvements in mapping, those instances are diminishing.

The challenge of locating within industry-standard timelines that were designed to ensure safety while keeping pace with construction schedules just isn’t working anymore for  common utilities appearing on most one-call tickets, no matter how many resources are applied. So, two years ago, a USP task force was assembled to determine the root cause and investigate options that would alleviate the strain on the damage prevention process while providing qualified options to the excavation community.

The task force gathered representatives from those utilities that receive the most notifications – ATCO, TELUS, FortisAlberta, EPCOR, ENMAX, the City of Calgary, the City of Edmonton and APEX Utilities – commonly referred to as “the consortium” members. 

The consortium members have long utilized a single-locator model to effectively manage the locating and marking process. Since these utilities appear simultaneously on most one-call tickets, dispatching one locator to locate and mark all consortium buried assets rather than dispatching multiple locators was efficient and smart. But ongoing challenges to the locating and marking process, including inclement weather and a demand that exceeds supply, are resulting in locate delays, frustrated excavators and frustrated locators.

As the task force investigated the problem, it realized that its contracts with locate service providers had created an artificial bottleneck that unintentionally eliminated locator capacity due to the size and requirements of their regional contracts. Looking beyond Alberta for a solution, the task force researched how its sister-utilities in British Columbia were located and marked and looked abroad to the locating and marking process as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

In B.C., locating and marking distribution gas, electric, telecom, etc. is the responsibility of the excavator. In Australia and New Zealand, it’s the same. In fact, locating and marking has always been the responsibility of the digging community in Australia but it wasn’t until recently that locators must be certified to do so.

As the task force moved toward a solution, it determined a process similar to Australia was necessary to eliminate the locator bottleneck in Alberta. It would develop a locating and marking standard specifically and only for these common distribution utilities with a process mirroring the Ground Disturbance 101 and 201 Standards managed by USP’s Training Standards Committee. 

The 101 and 201 Ground Disturbance Standards were developed by subject matter experts and are provided to training organizations upon request. The training organizations develop training programs in relation to the standards and submit them to USP for a three-stage audit. If a training provider’s training program passes the audit, it receives certification and permission from USP to promote its training program.

The USP Locating and Marking Standard will essentially work the exact same way but only for these common utilities noted above that appear on most one-call tickets. Eventually, the intention is to add other utility owners as the process evolves and matures, creating a sustainable solution for the damage prevention process in Alberta.

Once locators have been trained and certified against USP’s Locating and Marking Standard, the Alternate Locate Provider program will allow the digging community to choose between the conventional method of locating buried utilities or the Alternate Locate Provider – a retail model where the excavator assumes the cost of locating performed by a certified locator. The retail model has been socialized with, and is widely anticipated by, key members of Alberta’s digging community.