Projects per year
Abstract
Preventing accidental damage to buried utilities is a key area that the civil engineering and construction industry is attempting to make progress on. In addition to the health and safety consequences of operatives striking buried cables or pipes, there are numerous other impacts that can occur as a result of the damage. Many organisations collect data on utility strikes and incidents, but these are not shared across the industry. The research reported in this paper is based on unprecedented access to statistics from nine organisations, which provided a total of 3348 incidents to determine any patterns. The key results were that damage to telecommunications or electric cables was the most common; the frequency of incidents peaked between 09:00 and 12:00 on working days; hand tools were the most common excavation tool involved in utility strikes, closely followed by mechanical excavators; and rules not followed contributed to half of the incidents for one organisation. Furthermore, a definitive list of the impacts and costs associated with utility strikes is presented. Repair costs, calculated in the form of an average damage repair cost per utility, have been quantified as electricity £970, gas £485, telecommunications £400, fibre-optic £2800 and water £300–980.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 165-174 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Institution of Civil Engineers. Proceedings. Municipal Engineer |
Volume | 168 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 24 Aug 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2015 |
Keywords
- Excavation/health
- safety/infrastructure planning
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Civil and Structural Engineering
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Causes, impacts and costs of strikes on buried utility assets'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 2 Finished
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Assessing the Underworld - An Integrated Performance Model of City Infrastructures
Rogers, C., Atkins, P., Chapman, D., Jefferson, I., Metje, N. & Royal, A.
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council
1/06/13 → 31/05/18
Project: Research Councils
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MAPPING THE UNDERWORLD: MULTI-SENSOR DEVICE CREATION, ASSESSMENT, PROTOCOLS
Rogers, C., Atkins, P., Chapman, D. & Metje, N.
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council
1/01/09 → 25/08/13
Project: Research Councils