A Recipient’s View of One-Call Tickets

Michelle Finnigan, Consultant, One-Call Triage, Pembina Pipeline Corporation

It is evident in all areas of damage prevention that the 2024 Dig Season is well underway. As we see the weather begin to change (hopefully for the better), we also see an increase in one-call tickets being placed. With that increase also comes the inevitable increase in wait times for locates to be completed. The rollout of the Alternate Locate Provider program has been a hot topic this spring within Alberta’s damage prevention industry, with its main goal to increase the number of locate professionals and, in turn, decrease locate wait times. While this program will help significantly, there are other ways in which ticket requesters could potentially have their tickets processed faster. Excavators may not realize that there are several simple pieces of information that they can provide while entering one-call tickets that can help us, as triage personnel, process those tickets not only effectively, but much more efficiently. The following are some examples, along with how they benefit analysts and locators:

1. Having multiple pieces of information to describe a work area location is key in helping us verify work areas. If there are location details you have not entered into the ticket fields, provide that information in the remarks field. This includes things like rural blue sign addresses, coordinates, or even directions and/or distance from closest intersections. This information that isn’t auto-generated on the ticket is extremely helpful for confirming work areas. If we can confirm a work area with this information, we do not need to reach out to the contact to obtain it, making ticket processing more efficient. And if we can confirm the ticket is not in conflict with our pipelines, then it does not need to be sent to a field operator for confirmation, which also decreases wait times. Mentioning physical barriers, if any, is also good information for us to know.
2. To add to the first point, Google Maps is not as effective in determining an address or location as a municipality or city GIS map. Most urban centres offer a GIS mapping system now, as do rural counties. Google Maps or Google Earth can, however, help determine the coordinates of your work area.
3. If your USP account is registered as a homeowner account, please consider registering for a separate contractor account for your business purposes. If we see “homeowner” on a ticket, we assume it’s an individual completing work on their own personal property.
4. If you are a contractor/excavator, please list the party for whom the work is being done in the ticket remarks. If there are crossing agreements already in place, this information will assist us in locating the correct agreements to attach to the tickets before we send them to our field operators.
5. If you are processing a relocate ticket, and there are no changes required on the ticket, please use the relocate function. When USP launched its new NextGen software earlier this year, a new function called copy ticket was rolled out. We have seen a drastic increase in users listing previous ticket numbers as opposed to completing relocates, which results in analysts having to spend more time searching for previous ticket numbers and data. If a ticket is processed as a relocate, we have all previous tickets available at the click of a button. This is not the case when relocate tickets are not processed as such.

Adding information such as contact info into ticket remarks is not necessary, as that information has already been collected within the ticket fields. The most useful information to analysts and locators is that of which helps us triage your tickets as effectively as possible. The more you help us do our jobs, the faster you can complete yours.