DAMAGE PREVENTION SOFTWARE
Training, awareness and 811 have done a lot. What they haven't changed is what's left after a locate: marks that disappear in weeks and a record that says the locate happened.
When a strike comes months later, the investigation can't answer the basic questions. Was the line where the marks said? How deep? Was everything in the dig area found? It comes down to two accounts instead of a record.
A closed ticket is asserted, not proven
Your ticket system does its job well. It knows a locate was requested, who it went to and when it was closed.
It was never built to know where the line was found, how deep, by what method, or how good the position was. That's a different record, and it's the one an investigation needs.
We sit beside your ticket system. We don't replace it.
- The ticket arrives the way it does now.
- The locator starts the locate in TerraFlow against the ticket number and connects their locator and GPS.
- They locate the way they always have.
- Each point records position, depth, method, signal, utility type, locator and time, with the GPS accuracy stored beside it.
- The sketch is drawn to scale from those points, in the field.
- The record syncs as soon as the tablet has signal.
- Data Engine delivers it to the utility in the format they asked for.
No forms to fill in afterwards. The record exists because they did the locate.
Position error against the tolerance zone
Tolerance zones are set by state law, commonly 18 inches (46 cm) either side of the mark and wider in some states (PHMSA state law summaries). GPS.gov puts a phone's GPS at about 16 feet (4.9 m) under open sky, and it's worse under trees (GPS.gov).
A record with a phone position can't tell you which side of the tolerance zone the line was on. A record with an RTK position, and its accuracy stored beside it, can.
For utilities and operators
With structured records from every locate on your system, you can:
- see which contractors document completely and which don't
- find the corridors that keep producing re-locates
- answer a damage claim with the record, not a recollection
- see where the field keeps disagreeing with your maps
PUC Services in Sault Ste. Marie works this way now, with RTK receivers and TerraFlow connected to ArcGIS Online (Esri Canada).
For locate companies
Every minute a locator spends on paperwork is a minute not locating. When the sketch is roughly 90% done by the time the locate is, the end-of-day paperwork mostly goes away.
And when an excavator can't find the marks, the record still knows where they were.
Where this is heading
Colorado has required new underground facilities to be electronically locatable when installed since 1 January 2020 (SB 18-167). PHMSA's April 2026 advisory bulletin on excavation damage (ADB-2026-05) asks pipeline operators to build CGA Best Practice 4-11, Accuracy of Locating, into their procedures and to audit locator performance. The pipeline safety reauthorization bill the Senate passed in April 2026 (S. 2975, Sec. 211) lists white-lining, positive response before excavation and newly installed facilities being locatable among the one-call practices it wants states to adopt. It isn't law yet.
The question isn't whether a checkable locate record becomes normal. It's whether you set it up on your own schedule.