New Report Underscores Progress, Challenges in Preventing Damages to Buried Utilities

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The Common Ground Alliance, the national nonprofit trade association dedicated to protecting underground utility lines, people who dig near them and their communities, published its 2023 Damage Information Reporting Tool Report. The report introduces the CGA Index, a new metric for evaluating year-over-year damage trends, which revealed both progress and a critical need for accelerated action to prevent damage to vital underground infrastructure. The annual DIRT Report provides a comprehensive analysis of damages to buried infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada to help stakeholders understand the damage landscape and the factors contributing to underground facility damages. In its inaugural year, … Read more

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2020 DIRT Report Reveals Damage Prevention Challenges Continue Amidst Global Pandemic

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Common Ground Alliance has released the findings from its 2020 Damage Information Reporting Tool Report. The report analyzed all 2020 data submitted voluntarily by facility operators, utility locating companies, one call centers, contractors, regulators and others from the U.S. and Canada using an in-depth statistical modeling process. The results of this analysis found that an estimated 468,000 excavation-related damages to underground facilities occurred in the U.S. in 2020. Construction activity was down 4.2% in 2020 from 2019 as measured by construction spending and adjusting for steep inflation in building materials and supplies that occurred in 2020, according to the report’s … Read more

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Common Ground Alliance Publishes White Paper on Improving Delivery of Accurate, On-Time Locates

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Common Ground Alliance has published a white paper based on recent research among locating stakeholders that points to an often-strained damage prevention system. The CGA white paper, Insights into Improving the Delivery of Accurate, On-Time Locates, analyzes data from a survey of more than 400 locate technicians, information gleaned from in-depth interviews with 20 locating managers and industry decision makers and damage data from CGA’s 2019 DIRT Report to paint a picture of how the locating industry is working to manage the increasing volume and complexity of tickets. As the 2019 DIRT Report details, one call transmissions continue to rise and, in … Read more

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Common Ground Alliance Estimates Damage to Buried Utilities Increased with Excavation Activity between 2015, 2017

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Common Ground Alliance, the stakeholder-driven organization dedicated to protecting underground utility lines, people who dig near them and their communities, announced its findings and analysis of utility damage and near-miss events in the 2017 Damage Information Reporting Tool Report. The report, which analyzes all 2017 data submitted anonymously and voluntarily by facility operators, utility locating companies, one call centers, contractors, regulators and others, used a refined statistical modeling process to estimate that 439,000 excavation-related damages to underground facilities occurred in 2017, up 5.5 percent from a revised 2016 estimate. CGA, in collaboration with its statistical analysis consultant, Green Analytics, applied … Read more

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Common Ground Alliance’s 2015 DIRT Report Estimates 9% Drop in Damages to Buried Utilities

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Common Ground Alliance, the stakeholder-run organization dedicated to protecting underground utility lines and the people who dig near them, shared findings from its comprehensive 2015 Damage Information Reporting Tool report. The report, which is the sum of all 2015 data submitted anonymously and voluntarily by facility operators, utility locating companies, one call centers, contractors and regulators, estimates that the total number of underground excavation damages in the U.S. last year dropped by 9 percent from the year prior, to approximately 317,000 damages. The 2015 damage ratio, which measures damages per 1,000 one-call transmissions, decreased by nearly 4 … Read more

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