811 Day Brings Awareness to Utility Safety
Gas Pipeline Map from 1970. Geological Survey, U. S. & Gerlach, A. C. The national atlas of the United States of America. Washington. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.
In 1995, there were more than 20 million miles of buried utilities in the United States, making excavating very dangerous. Compounding the problem was the 70+ state and regional numbers to call for underground utility locating. The situation was a mess, and business leaders across the country called on Congress to impose order on the situation. The result was a single, nationwide number to call for underground locating of buried infrastructure facilities: 811. Whether a homeowner, excavator or any other business planning to break ground on a new construction project, utility locating coordination happens through this single number.
Know What’s Below
Knowing what is underground before digging is essential – a single utility strike can shut down service for an entire region, not to mention the risk of injury and death for the excavator and people living and working nearby.
Buried utilities under a city street
In the past 30 years, the number and type of buried facilities has grown exponentially. For example, since 2000, the fiber optic network has grown from just a few miles to millions of miles. This vast network of gas, water, sewer, cable TV, internet, telephone, and electric lines continues to grow. Now there is more than one football field's length of buried utilities for every person in the US, according to the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure.
This nationwide tangle of pipes and cables makes underground locating a huge challenge, since buried facilities are made of many different materials, are buried at different depths, and many of them are no longer active or on any type of digital map that can help the utility locator accurately flag them.
Technology
Technology is helping to address the problem of locating buried infrastructure. Methods include:
Electromagnetic (EM) Locators that detect the electromagnetic field generated by a current running through a metal pipe, wire or cable.
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) that directs radio waves into the ground, then analyzes the returning echoes to create images of underground structures. This technology can render images of non-metallic facilities such as PVC pipes.
Acoustic Detection detects the sound made by leaks in gas or water lines.
Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS technology uses existing technologies and high-precision GPS to create accurate maps of underground infrastructure in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and GIS. Uses passive or active RFID markers installed along buried facilities. RFID/GIS provides near-perfect location accuracy and immediate access to utility data, regardless of facility material, age, or surrounding utilities.
Technology Comparison Table[1]
InfraMarker RFID - Designed for asset marking and management
InfraMarker RFID is native to Esri’s popular data collection apps, Survey123 and Field Maps. This powerful approach means that any asset, anywhere can be quickly and accurately identified with a simple scan, giving field users the ability to not only see the identify the asset, but to access its history. The utility owner can also choose to share any part of this data with the excavator, helping to prevent damage during excavation.
Unintended utility strikes cost the US more than $30 billion each year. Installing RFID with utilities would not only prevent costly and dangerous strikes, but it also streamlines utility maintenance by verifying asset identity, launching appropriate maintenance workflows and automatically generating documentation of every activity.
See InfraMarker at the upcoming American Public Works Association PWX Conference in Chicago, August 17-20, 2025, Booth 2062.