Utility Strikes
True Cost
Estimator

Utility Strikes

True Cost Estimation

In the U.S. it is estimated that an underground utility is hit about every minute, and there were 317,869 known strikes with damage in 2016 (CGA-DIRT 2016). In the state of New Jersey, millions of excavations are carried out each year to install or repair buried pipes and cables or to construct new facilities, and some of those excavations has led to damages to buried utilities. These damages risked lives and interrupted service, inflicting substantial but unknown cost to the utility industry and the society at large. While the direct cost of these damages are often borne by the utility or construction companies, the social costs of these damages are often tremendous but are difficult to estimate, leading to the challenges to establish clear accountabilities for the true cost of utility strikes. This issue is particularly pronouncing in the state of New Jersey as New Jersey has some of the most densely populated areas and the most intricate infrastructure systems in the Nation. Needed is a robust tool that can be used to estimate the true cost of utility strikes. Such a tool would allow the NJBPU and the utility industry to identify the ways in which these costs can be minimized as well as gaps in knowledge requiring further research. The tool would also assist the NJ Board of Public Utility to implement enforcement measures on excavation damage prevention.