Reducing NC one call's false ticketing
History of NC One Call
Located in Greensboro, North Carolina, NC One Call was created by the utility members
of the State of North Carolina. Maintaining a simple database, NC One Call each year
keeps track of what utilities have underground facilities in a geographic area by county.
This database was developed and implemented to simply comply with state law and has
proved to be of little value to the association members due to the number of false tickets
issued.
NC One Call is a member of National Joint Utilities Notification System (NJUNS).
NJUNS is a national organization of member utilities formed for the purpose of
improving the coordination of joint ventures. Their systems offer utility companies a
method of obtaining up-to-date information on a variety of shared concerns, including
pole transfers, joint trenching and permits for new attachments to poles.
In 1994, NC One Call designed a grid system based on square ¼ mile cells across the
entire state.
Each year, each member utility would overlay their GIS or paper maps with this grid and
mark which grids they had facilities in. Based on the confidence level of the positional
accuracy of facilities, the adjoining grids were usually also identified. The grids were
then sent to NC One Call ,which entered this information into its database.
When excavation project calls were placed to NC One Call, "dig boxes" were drawn
around the location of the excavation project. All grids touching the "dig box" were
highlighted. An automated ticket was then generated for each utility that indicated a
member utility had facilities inside or near that grid. This process worked better than the
previous method of county notification, but was still deemed as costly and inefficient.
PSNC Energy, as an example, dedicated one technician for 2 full months each year to
marking grids with underground facilities and surrounding grids for safety. NC One Call
dedicated a full time staff member to enter and maintain its database containing all the
member utilities grid and facility information. As member utility personnel involved in
facility location became more familiar with the location of its own infrastructure in a
given area numerous issued tickets were discarded by personnel who were
knowledgeable that no facilities existed at that location.
These high costs and inefficiencies led to the need for a new, more accurate system that
allowed member utilities to take advantage of GIS systems to communicate with NC One
Call. The driving business need was to replace the manual technique of marking grids
and reduce the number of false tickets generated. The inefficiencies and related costs of
the existing system and business process were presented to the board in 1999.
Documented below are the issues presented:
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¼ mile grids were determined to be too large, causing many false tickets to be
generated.
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Due to the vast number of false tickets, personnel who were well versed where
facilities existed simply discarded them before notifying the crews. This caused a
greater problem when inexperienced personnel assumed this job function.
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The man-hours required to tag grids were labor intensive and cost prohibitive for both
members and NC One Call.
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There was no way to link the ticket back to a GIS if the field office did not have
access to a GIS.
