Written By: Matt Hill, Customer Success Manager, KorTerra

Safe digging is the driving factor behind one-call ticket management, both to preserve underground infrastructure and prevent injury. Utilities and municipalities need the right tools to minimize risk to both. That process starts with identifying high-risk excavations before a locator arrives on site.

What factors determine whether an excavation is high risk? Several variables stand out immediately: the type of underground facility in the area, the geographic location of the dig site, and the excavating party's track record. Understanding the type of work being performed also provides critical insight into the risk level. Excavations involving explosives or horizontal directional boring carry a fundamentally different risk profile than a residential landscaping project.

Why Identifying High-Risk 811 Tickets Matters for Damage Prevention

Hundreds of thousands of excavations occur across North America every day. The more effectively damage prevention teams identify high-risk scenarios within that volume, the lower the probability of a large-scale utility damage.

How should damage prevention teams surface high-risk tickets? By connecting intelligence about top risk conditions to the people who act on it: ticket screeners, dispatchers, and field locators. When high-risk indicators are visible and clearly flagged at the point of screening and dispatch, damage prevention personnel can take meaningful action before the locator reaches the dig site. That action reduces the likelihood of damage, injury, and in the most serious scenarios, loss of life.

How Does Infrastructure Value Factor Into Damage Prevention Risk Assessment?

Why should asset owners consider damage impact, not just damage probability? Identifying which tickets are most likely to result in a strike is only half the equation. The cost and consequence of damaging a specific facility matters just as much.

Any asset owner knows that fiber is valued above coax, transmission infrastructure is more critical than distribution, and mains carry more operational importance than service lines. But facility type alone doesn't capture the full picture. The geographic location of the asset and who is affected by a damage or service interruption also need to be part of the risk assessment. A gas main in a residential neighborhood carries different consequence than the same asset type in an industrial corridor.

How does GIS data help damage prevention teams prioritize risk? Accurate GIS and facility mapping data is essential for understanding which excavations encroach on your most critical underground infrastructure. That data should inform how tickets are screened, prioritized, and dispatched. With hundreds of variables involved in ticket screening, having a clear picture of which dig sites overlap with high-value assets is what allows damage prevention teams to focus their resources where the consequences of a miss are greatest.

How Ticket Management Technology Is Improving Risk Assessment for Utilities and Municipalities

Knowledge and awareness are what make excavation safe. When damage prevention teams lack a detailed understanding of the data attached to a ticket, risk increases for both locator and excavator.

What role do ticket management platforms play in reducing excavation risk? Ticket management companies are focused on providing damage prevention teams with better risk notifications and assessment tools built directly into the ticket workflow. As these capabilities advance, utilities and municipalities gain the ability to make more informed decisions about how to handle specific excavation projects: which tickets need a senior locator, which need an audit trigger, and which can be processed through standard workflow.

The expectation of fewer damages grows every year. By surfacing actionable risk data at the point of ticket creation and dispatch, ticket management platforms give utilities and municipalities the information they need to act on risk before it becomes a damage.

About KorTerra, Inc.

KorTerra is the leading provider of damage prevention software, protecting billions of dollars in underground infrastructure. For over 30 years, the leading stakeholders in gas distribution, pipeline operation, telecommunications, electric distribution, contract locating, and city, county, and state governments have trusted KorTerra as their damage prevention solution. KorTerra helps mitigate risk and ensure the safety of field personnel by providing secure software platforms for processing 811 locate tickets, tracking and reporting asset damages, meeting regulatory compliance, and more. Explore additional solutions at korterra.com and follow KorTerra on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Paige Nygaard – KorTerra, Inc.
952.368.1911
marketing@korterra.com