Latest report estimates 400,000 underground utility damage events per year in North America

The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) has released its latest DIRT (Damage Information Reporting Tool) Report covering 2015, 2016 and 2017.   To make it possible to estimate the total number of events and to allow comparison across years, a refined approach for massaging the data was used in this report.  Taking into consideration excavation activity, the analysis reveals that total damages have plateaued over the past three years at about 400,000 damage events per year.

The number of reported damages in 2017 was 316,442, consisting of 10,644 in Canada and 305,799 in the U.S. 

• 2015 278,861
• 2016 317,869
• 2017 316, 442

DIRT is voluntary and does not capture all damage to underground utilities during excavation.  In the latest DIRT report, a subset of states that were substantially reporting damage events was identified. These 10 states were used to correct for under reporting states and to estimate the total number of damage events taking place in the U.S. for 2015, 2016, and 2017.

This year’s also also presents time trends based on stakeholders who have consistently reported damages during excavtions over the past three years.  The damages reported by these stakeholders is a significant portion of the total damages reported through DIRT and the trends in damages over time from these stakeholders are believed to represent a solid representation of the trend in total damages.  When the total excavation activity is taken into account the data reveals that the total number of damage events has plateaued over the past three years at roughly 400,000 events per year.

The  The report also revealed that the type of underground infrastructure that was most frequently damaged during construction was telecommunications cables followed by natural gas lines.  The most common reason for the damage was ascribed to construction practices.  The next most common reasons were inaccurate locates and the one-call centre not being notified prior to excavation.

With an average cost of about $4,000 per hit, the CGA has found that a conservative estimate of the direct cost to the U.S. economy is at least $1.5 billion.  If indirect and social costs are included, UK research suggests that the total drag on the U.S. economy is at least $50 billion.  This is further supporting evidence of the economic importance of mapping underground infrastructure.