2021 Year in Review – USP Notification Centre

2021 Year in Review – USP Notification Centre

2021 was another very busy year for Utility Safety Partners! By yearend, our Notification Centre, which remains the core of our operations, had processed over 468,000 locate requests and notified our members of excavation activity near their buried assets 1.6 million times - the most annual locate requests USP has processed in over 10 years. Interestingly, that amount of activity would have kept the Notification Centre absolutely BUZZING with activity ten years ago but today, with 85% of locate requests originating on the web, that’s just not the case anymore. 

Three hundred and ninety-seven thousand locate requests were placed on the web last year by our members, the digging community and homeowners and only 71,000 were requested by phone. The vast majority of locate requests received by phone overall, however, are from homeowners, which is understandable. Homeowners utilize our services perhaps once every ten years - or maybe only once in a lifetime - while our members and the digging community use our services every day. 

Homeowner web interaction continues to expand. However, despite ongoing awareness and education efforts, growth is largely organic with approximately 43% of all homeowner engagements originating on the web. “ClickBeforeYouDig” by USP members and the digging community across Alberta, however, has never been more prolific with an incredible 97% of those locates originating on the web!

In contrast, the number of all calls received (locate requests, support, etc.) continued to decline – in fact, faster than anticipated indicating user familiarity with web-based services, including chat, continues to grow. USP promotes and hosts online webinar training to improve awareness, enhance knowledge of the damage prevention process and train users who use our online services. In 2021, USP’s 18 webinar training sessions were attended by 240 users.

Net Notifications per Locate Request

USP tracks this metric to gauge whether or not USP members are being adequately notified of digging activity near their buried assets. If a member is being over-notified; ie: receiving too many notifications for ground disturbances well beyond their registered assets, the member can switch how their data is registered or change the size of their buffer zones to reduce over-notification and reduce their operational costs. 

Since USP cutover to PelicanCorp’s OneCallAccess software in 2019, the number of Notifications per Locate Request have reduced by roughly 30%. While this is good for USP members and USP Operations, it has also reduced USP revenues by the same percentage.

Mike Sullivan – USP President