I have blogged previously about research at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. that found that the indirect and social cost of underground utility damage was 29 X the direct cost. At the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance conference Scott Landes, of Infrastructure Resources LLC, offered a checklist of the direct, indirect and societal cost of damage to underground infrastructure. Articles about the true cost of damage to water infrastructure and telecom infrastructure have appeared in DP-PRO.
Items that may or may not be collected
- External collection costs/agency commissions
- Barricades/traffic control
- Permits (city/county/state/provincial) to install replacement cables/pipelines
- Legal fees and litigation costs
- Exposing the damage for repair
- Materials used in repair
- Restoration of the area
- Actual cost of internal labour
- Heavy equipment used
- Generator/power equipment
- Food, lodging, and travel expense
- Emergency mobilization (contractor/locator)
Time
- Damage investigation, on-site and follow-up
- Internal staff collection efforts
- Out of service complaints
- Insurance resolution discussions
- Overtime for unexpected increases in workload
- Employee time/travel for depositions/trial
Overlooked/difficult to track
- Lost customers
- Customer loss of use (refunds/credits)
- Resolution of customer complaints
- Engineering/reengineering due to damage
- Establishing outage bridge to coordinate services interruption
- Support staff (3-20) for outage bridge
- Workload delays
- Future failure points (damage may weaken system and lead to future failure unattributed to 3rd party)
- Damage data capture and submission (software and/or manual)
- Emergency on call ticket notifications
- Facility owner records updates
- Reporting requirements (FAA, 911, PHMSA)
Soft costs
- Loss of brand confidence
- Negative public feedback
- Difficulty maintaining customer relationships, especially large businesses, with inconsistent services
Societal costs
- Loss of 911/emergency services
- Business closing
- Employee downtime
- Road closures/traffic delays
This is a very interesting list because it provides a perspective on the comprehensive impact on society of disruptions to utilities and telecom resulting from underground damage during construction.
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