Origin of Locate Requests & Average Speed of Answer

Origin of Locate Requests & Average Speed of Answer

Utility Safety Partners processes close to 500 thousand locate requests every year. That’s a lot of digging! 

72 percent of locate requests in 2021 were submitted by members of the digging community, and amazingly, 97 percent of those requests were submitted over the web. Although digging activity among our member companies is considerably lower, their statistics are equally impressive with 98 percent of their locate requests originating on the web. And when we look at the origin of web locate requests, they dominate the system from all corners of the province. 

For those who can’t log on to the web, or simply prefer requesting a locate by phone, our Damage Prevention Agents are there for you Monday to Friday during regular business hours. 

"The percentage of web locate requests has been climbing steadily for years,” says Sher Kirk, Operations Director "but we continue to monitor the metrics and performance of our system and scheduling to meet demands.”

"It’s a bit of a struggle,” continues Josef Rosenberg, Contact Centre Manager "On a Monday in May, our busiest month of the year, we could have 75 Agents and they’d all be kept very busy for about four or five hours. Then, just like flipping a switch, peak demand drops like a stone. So, we manage call traffic and Agent availability using the Erlang Formula - a dimensionless unit used in telephony as a measure of offered load or carried load.” 

USP’s average speed of answer varies from Monday to Friday with Monday morning always having the highest volume of calls. But, if don’t want to wait to speak with an Agent, try calling on Thursday or Friday. You likely won’t have to wait at all to speak with one of our frontline staff.

Mike Sullivan - President - Utility Safety Partners