Dial Before You Dig Damages Reporting System
Date: 29-Jun-2017
Managing damage to underground infrastructure is a challenge for all utilities and Dial Before You Dig has developed a tool to help. The Damages Reporting System is now available, building on a similar product which has been operating in the U.S. for a number of years.
The tool was recently reviewed by the qldwater Technical Reference Group. It is both user friendly and sophisticated enough to be able to store map references for incidents, along with extensive metadata, and incident photographs. It is capable of producing a number of different location-based management reports and is possible to integrate with other GIS and asset management systems.
Telstra has uploaded all of its historical incidents to the tool. While specific information about incidents is currently not able to be shared between utilities (what you put in is only yours to see, apart from the high-level, de-identified management reports), further uptake of the tool will build a valuable dataset, paving the way for more data sharing in the future.
Dial Before You Dig is keen to see water service providers make use of the software in the interests of improving this dataset, and has offered to make the tool available to all Queensland Water Service Providers free of charge, whether current DBYD members or not.
It should be noted that damages reporting at a high level will be included in the new DEWS Key Performance Indicator Framework, with indicators covering water and sewerage main breaks as well as those caused by third parties. While SWIM will record these values, the tool offers a richer dataset to assist in managing reactive and preventative maintenance programs.
If you would like to obtain a guest login to trial the “sandbox” for the tool, please contact Paul Newman, Manager Dial Before You Dig Queensland, at pnewman@1100.com.au.
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