Someone in our office called in a 811 ticket and gave the 811 person description of the project.?ÿ The written description was transcribed wrong but the map the 811 person generated was correct.?ÿ The high-pressure gas line we needed marked was not marked.?ÿ Maybe 8 -10 phone calls to the locater, the utility company, and the State Corporation Commission later, after 5:00 this evening phone calls started coming in.?ÿ Issue resolved.?ÿ
However, in the interim, I called in a more precise ticket.?ÿ The 811 person asked me for GPS coordinates and I gave her State Plane coordinates - she said she needed something that started with 38.?ÿ I then started explaining the location and she started asking me questions.?ÿ I gave her B&D from the closest intersection and she says she can only use cardinal directions.?ÿ Finally, she starts mentioning a map (Google Earth) and I tell her the area to mark relative to the aerial.?ÿ She transcribes this into the ticket.?ÿ I ask why she just does not include the aerial in the ticket and she is not allowed to.?ÿ I ask why we cannot send her a map and she says not allowed to.?ÿ Does anyone else have problems calling in a simple description for a 811 ticket that is transcribed by a well meaning clerk to come out the other side totally unlike what you called in?
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We seem to get better service when we go out and mark, with white paint, the limits we need marked.?ÿ?ÿ
811-type employees are not land surveyors or even pretend to be such knowledgeable people.?ÿ The burden is on the one calling in to make the correct area perfectly clear to the average Eighth Grade student.?ÿ To expect anything better is wishing on a star.?ÿ Over 90 percent of what we are calling in for is within a road right-of-way of some sort.?ÿ Nearly all of our roads have names and run on section lines or aliquot part lines out in the county.?ÿ Locates inside city limits are rare for us.
What I do is find the site in google earth, screen clip the area, open that picture in microsoft paint and draw an orange box around my area of interest, attach to ticket.?ÿ Zero problems and I've used this method dozens of times.?ÿ Works really well getting facility maps from cities too.
Making locate calls in Wisconsin can occasionally be a bear. Just recently we had to call in 12 tickets with what could easily be described as a ??block?. There went 45 minutes of our day. It seems it would be much easier on everyone, specifically the locater out in the field, if we could just submit a simple aerial with our area of interest highlighted. The technology is obviously there. Why must they make it 12x more complicated than it should be. Why do they need to know every separate tax parcel number?
If there??s any logical reasoning to not allow a highlighted aerial I??d like to know. Why must we describe our request with some sort of ad hoc legal description format?
Other times I??ve called in a similar request and the person I spoke with did simplify it into one ticket. So it may depend who you talk to?
Wow, as Mark said our 811 is a fairly painless online process.?ÿ You actually draw out the area you want marked on a Google based map within the browser.?ÿ We just have to wait 10 business days for pre-design surveys.
Wow.?ÿ Have never had a request for a tax parcel number.?ÿ Ever.?ÿ Did not know that was something that might be requested.
It's apparent from this thread that 811 requests vary greatly dependent on one's location. Here in Indiana, we aren't even supposed to call in tickets. Tickets are done online after one completes a training course and receives a login account. Inactive accounts expire and require retaking the training. No attached maps. No parcel numbers. Maximum run per ticket.
I actually prefer this. It was difficult to explain things to someone over the phone at times. If you leave out information or if your area is unclear to whoever reviews it, you will receive an email asking you to clarify.?ÿ
I'm surprised every place doesn't require, or at least accept, pictures.?ÿ The actual locators I've talked to love it if someone can hand them a picture of what to paint.
Yeah I agree that pictures would make life simpler for everyone. I haven't done a ticket in over a year,?ÿ but if I remember correctly a map would be generated from the information provided. You could see what the locator would see as far a map goes, but it was just a vicinity map, not highlighted.?ÿ
Member companies in Predecessors to 811 (at least in Ohio) received tickets via fax. So the format is such that it can be received on a fax, still
I always call in 2 tickets, one is physical marking (driving a pin is excavation in Ohio). The other is exactly the same except its a design ticket, except request for mapping.?ÿ
I always offer to send PDF, KMZ, etc to anyone wanting addtional info. This approachvhas served me well over the years.
Jim
At first, I had thought the problem with the 811 dispatcher in the OP was because of Google's copyright on the images, but multiple people in this thread use them as part of their request. I think there are some things that should NOT vary from state to state. Especially safety issues like this one. We had a guy in Durham get blown up because the 811 contractor did not mark a gas line. There should be minimum standards for detail required on a ticket... and I personally feel that adding an annotated map should be required. #rantover
The first half of my career was spent mostly in Houston. I didn't know other places were different, but now I have an appreciation for the system there. We did not call in locates. The utility companies had plans for their facilities.
At the beginning of every project, we sent out letters to each company requesting their records, including for them a vicinity map and a project limits map so they would know precisely where the work was happening. They would send their maps to us and we would include the information on our plans from that.
The plans varied from utility to utility. Telephone plans were the most precise, having real plan and profiles. Gas would be plan view only, but with dimensions to the R/W. Power and light would be just a schematic, but you were able to verify pole locations and the lines that ran between them, underground and overhead.
When it came time for getting construction plans approved, part of that process was having the utility companies sign off on what was shown. You would take your plans and their plans, and the signer would verify locations and then add their signature to the plans. It really was a smooth process. I'm guessing contractors would actually call in locators, but I never had to before I moved to Indiana.?ÿ
Andy, I *really* like having everyone sign off on plans first! On a related note, we're dealing with a mess down here right now where different utility contractors didn't talk and the original design company was incompetent to boot...
Communication is KEY to success.
