Enhanced Positive Response Pilot

Enhanced Positive Response Pilot
Montgomery County Maryland
March - June 2014
Intro to Enhanced Positive Response (EPR)
● Damage prevention is an ongoing journey
● Requires ongoing commitment and focus
● Results shown via AGA annual survey
● Next evolution of Damage Prevention is EPR
● Pilot completed in Maryland with excellent results
Who was involved?
Why Did We Do This Pilot?
● We as facility owners wanted to learn if providing excavators
access to digital technologies (tickets, photos, facility maps
and electronic manifests) would make the job safer, more
efficient and reduce system wide damages.
● To test the relative value of the four EPR components
provided as part of the pilot.
● To prototype a technology infrastructure using the call
center as the information hub
EPR Information Flow
Current Process Today
Notification of
Excavation
Miss Utility
Maryland
Enhanced Positive Response
Locate
Requests to
Utiliquest
Utiliquest
Locate
Operation
Locate Manifest
& Photos
Miss Utility
Maryland
Excavator
Search and
Status
In addition to positive response codes - Call
Center receives Ticket, Virtual Manifest, Photos
and Facility Maps
What is an EPR?
● Facility Maps
● Virtual Manifest
● Photographs
● Ticket Data
Pilot Scope
• Period: April 7 - June 6, 2014
• Location: Montgomery County, MD
• Tickets called in by Lamberts, NPL and R.B. Hinkle
• Tickets assigned to UtiliQuest
• Excavators & Facility Auditors completed Surveys
• Data analyzed and available
Pilot Summary
• 10,207 Tickets in pilot area containing EPR data
• 10,564 Virtual Manifests
• 27,522 Photographs
• 50,124 Facility maps (plats)
• 1,034 surveys completed
➢ 906 excavator surveys
➢ 128 utility employee surveys
Quotes From EPR Participants
➔
“NPL saw tremendous value in the Enhanced Positive Response Pilot, and we would like to see this
become a standard part of the process.” ~ NPL
➔
“Enhanced Positive Response improved our crew planning and made us more efficient.” ~ Lamberts
➔
“This pilot program is an example of utilization of both technology and relationships to collaboratively
reduce damages.” ~ Washington Gas
➔
“This enhanced ticket response is going to pave the way for how our future will look and will be
credited with significantly reducing damages.” ~ Chairman of the MD DC Subscribers Committee
Timeline
EPR Committee
is created, value
& pilot goals
identified
Technical
Requirements
implemented,
Disclaimer created,
finalize pilot goals
Survey Form and
EPR Doc Training,
Communications
begin
GO LIVE
COMPLETE
Data Collection & QC Process
January
2014
February
2014
March
2014
April
2014
May
2014
June
2014
Survey Stats
● Pilot ran for 9 weeks from 4-07 to 6-06
● Total of 1034 surveys
● Excavator surveys from NPL, Lamberts and RB Hinkle
● Facility owner surveys (field
auditors) from WGL and Verizon
What we learned about EPR
● Every component of the EPR package provided value
○ The jobsite was safer
○ The efficiency of excavator work was improved
○ Job site communications were improved
CGA mission: Making the job site safer
proved to be a prominent outcome of EPR
What we learned about digital info
● Using the call center as the “hub” appears to be an efficient
way of distributing digital information
● EPR enabled better info flow even within the same company
● With digital survey technology we can collect “quality”
information like “unsatisfactory locates” or near misses
Digital information raises the overall
level of quality in underground locating
Considerations for Full Rollout
● Need to consider limiting information access to applicable
target audiences including expiration
● Layering of data may be important
● Will need End User Agreement covering proper use of EPR
Full Scale Roll Out Will
Require Additional Infrastructure
What was on the Survey?
The feedback form had questions in both English and Spanish:
●
●
●
Complete the job faster or more efficiently?
Make the job safer?
Prevent a damage on the job?
●
●
●
●
The ticket?
The facility maps?
The electronic sketch?
The photos?
Scoring
System
1 & 2 = No
3 = Neutral
4 & 5 = Yes
Jobsite Safety
“Enhanced positive response
definitely made the job site
safer.” ~ Washington Gas
93% of Excavators and 88% of Facility
Owners thought EPR made the jobsite safer
Damage Prevention
93% of Excavators and 72% of Facility Owners
thought EPR improved damage prevention
Job Efficiency
92% of Excavators and 55% of Facility
Owners thought EPR improved job efficiency
Ticket Data
95% of Excavators and 73% of Facility
Owners found ticket data of value
Facility Maps
90% of Excavators and 66% of Facility
Owners found facility maps of value
Virtual Manifest
87% of Excavators and 73% of Facility
Owners found the virtual manifest to be valuable
Photos
87% of Excavators and 71% of Facility Owners found photos valuable
Locate Quality Feedback
“The enhanced communication
between stakeholders raised the
level of quality throughout the
process.” ~ UtiliQuest
1.74% of Surveys submitted showed an unsatisfactory Locate score.
Damages per 1000 Locates
Jan-Mar
Pilot Period
Period Inc/Dec%
2014
.58
.40
-31%
2013
.45
1.20
-167%
YR/YR Inc/Dec. %
29%
-67%
Next Steps
EPR Pilot Committee comes back together to
discuss what was learned and where to go next
Value in continuing broad involvement across
the committee including locators, facility
owners, and one call centers
Contact Information
Scott Brown - scottbrown@washgas.com
Terry Fordham - terry.fordham@utiliquest.com
Dave Crawford - dave.crawford@certusview.com
Randy Peterson - randy@occinc.com