FOR OPERATORS
Thousands of locates happen on your network every year. Almost none of them reach you as data.
They arrive as PDFs, photos, hand sketches and email attachments. The format depends on who did the work. The position, if there is one, came from a phone. And when an auditor asks for every locate on a corridor over a date range, somebody spends a week in a shared drive.
A closed ticket tells you a locate happened. That's all.
The one-call system shows you a completion status. It doesn't show you where the line was found, how deep, by what method, or how good the GPS fix was.
So when something goes wrong, the question is answered from the locator's memory and whatever the contractor happened to keep. Every contractor keeps something different. None of it can be compared.
That's a format problem. You can fix it without a procurement cycle.
Require a record, not a product
You can't tell a hundred contractors what locator to buy. You can tell them what a locate record has to contain.
We've written a field-level standard for exactly that. Position with its accuracy. Depth and method. Utility type. Who, and when, per measurement. The sketch. The record's history.
It's free to use. You can adopt it whether or not a single contractor uses our software. Any contractor with a GNSS receiver and a data-capable locator can meet it.
Ask us for a copy: contact@terraflow.ca
Two ways to start without a meeting
The record standard. The full field list, free to reference in your contractor requirements. Ask us for a copy.
The clause. One line you can drop into your own spec: "Locate records shall be submitted in structured digital format meeting the TerraFlow Locate Record Standard, with GNSS accuracy recorded per point."
Need a full contractor specification? We can provide one, or build one with you around your program.
A utility already working this way
PUC Services in Sault Ste. Marie deployed TerraFlow to connect its crews' RTK receivers to ArcGIS Online. Esri Canada reports PUC's positioning error fell from 10 to 16 feet (3 to 5 m) to about an inch (2.54 cm) (Esri Canada, March 2026).
In October 2026 the Ontario Dig Authority gave PUC its Innovation in Dig Safety Award for integrating RTK positioning with its GIS (PUC, October 2026).
Those are a utility's own crews, not a contractor requirement. It shows what locate records look like when they arrive as data.
What arrives in your GIS
Records arrive in WGS84 or the datum you specify, with the fix type and the accuracy the receiver reported on every point.
Data Engine delivers them to Esri ArcGIS Online or Portal, or as Shapefile, CSV, GeoJSON, KML or DXF, with a REST API if you'd rather pull them. Shapefile and CSV exports are produced automatically as records sync. Exports come out in feet and inches or metric.
Will contractors push back?
Some will. A requirement is a format, not a product, so a contractor can meet it with the locator and receiver they already own.
The ones who want to try TerraFlow can start on one truck, with nothing to buy.
Who pays for it
It depends on how you buy.
An operator can license TerraFlow for the contractors working on its network. Contractors can license it themselves. Or the two can share it.
If you only require the record standard, you pay nothing. Contractors meet it however they choose.
We set it up to fit how your procurement already works.
What changes when every contractor submits the same way
One place, one format. Every locate on your network, filterable by corridor, contractor, date range or utility type.
Quality you can see. Which crews produce complete records and which don't. Quality stops being a feeling.
Audit requests in minutes. The complete record set for a corridor and period, with the accuracy of every point attached.
Your maps, checked by the field. Every locate either confirms what your records say is underground or corrects it. Over a few years that becomes a picture of your network built from work that was happening anyway.
We don't own your program
Your damage prevention program. Your ticket system. Your GIS. Your QA.
We don't replace any of them. Our job is narrower: every record arriving with its position and the accuracy of that position recorded. What you do with it stays yours.
Who owns what
TerraFlow doesn't own the records. How you and your contractors share them is between you, and your contractor requirements are the place to set it. Full export in standard formats, any time. On-premises and dedicated hosting available.
Why this is coming anyway
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.
Operators who set the record format now choose their own timetable. The rest will be doing it against a deadline.