Abstract

Causes, impacts and costs of strikes on buried utility assets

Highlights

  • One common feature in almost all construction projects is the need to carry out excavations or earthworks

  • Liaising with nine industry partners, the statistics below were collected for utility strike incidents or near-misses that they have recorded & date & time & service type & equipment & impacts, and repair work required

  • According to Barhale (2006), most utility strikes happen as a result of one or a combination of the following reasons & inadequate or poor planning & rushing to complete work & lack of information, or inaccurate information & poor excavation techniques & lack of care around services & limited or improper use of instruments, such as cable avoidance tools (CAT) & plant items can be a major culprit due to the lack of fine control and visibility that the driver has

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Summary

Introduction

One common feature in almost all construction projects is the need to carry out excavations or earthworks. Coupled with the fact that the vast majority of the UK’s utilities (gas, water, sewer, electric, telecoms) are located underground, these activities bring with them the principal risk of hitting and damaging this buried infrastructure This is a risk that remains ever present, regardless of the type of excavation tool used. This paper, for the first time in the UK, focuses on analysing historic utility strike data/incidents across a variety of civil engineering sectors and from different companies. It further assesses the direct and indirect costs of these strikes and, where possible, quantifies these

Background
Analysis of patterns in utility strike occurrence
Root cause
Behavioural issues and training
Assessment of costs
Conclusions
12 Reputational damage 13 Loss of shareholder value
Findings
Practical relevance
Full Text
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