TN811 Posts
When placing a normal locate request, Tennessee state law requires a minimum of three working days’ notice, but not more than ten working days’ notice. While this isn’t new, many people don’t realize they can post-date a ticket up to ten working days prior to beginning work. Just to review, working days are defined as every day except Saturday, Sunday, and national and legal state holidays. A working day starts at the time the ticket is processed. During May, June and July TN 811 conducted a pilot program where select experienced agents asked callers when their work would be starting instead of defaulting to the usual three working days. The feedback we received was very positive from both callers and utilities. Due to the success of the pilot program, in late August all agents started informing callers that state law requires a minimum of three working days’ but no more than ten working days’ notice of your intent to dig. With that information in mind they then ask all callers when they plan to begin their project. This gives all callers the ability, using the 3-10 working day window, of choosing a date that works best for them. With the high volume of work going on across Tennessee, we hope that by offering callers the choice of a start date further out than three working days, when possible, it may allow locators more time to get the job complete and thereby give excavators a better confidence to rely on their markings being on time and thus reduce 2nd notice tickets. Callers do not have to post-date tickets – you can still go with the three working days’ notice if you choose that option. We just want everyone to be aware that they do have the option of post-dating tickets up to ten working days out, and to understand the overall benefit to the 811 system.
Tennessee 811 publishes a quarterly magazine that is mailed to approximately 10,000 stakeholders involved in damage prevention in Tennessee. The first issue each year focuses on pipeline safety, and the remaining issues have rotating themes related to utility damage prevention. The magazine is a great way to keep up with developments in the industry at both the national and local levels. In addition to the mailing, the magazine is distributed at damage prevention and safety meetings across the state. Here's a breakdown of our magazine's readers: Members Owner/operators of utility systems across the state, including gas pipeline/distribution, water/sewer, communications, electric and the locators who protect the underground facilities. Users Excavators who call before they dig, including utilities that are users but not members of 811. These excavators range from the largest contractors to some of the smallest across the state, but are defined as calling at least once a month, in other words a professional excavator who buys, rents, or otherwise maintains operational equipment. Public Officials Every county supervisor, every mayor, state legislators, state and federal regulatory personnel. Check out http://www.tennessee.811magazines.com to view back issues or to subscribe for free.
If you've called in a locate request lately, you've experienced longer than average hold times. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we're thankful that so many excavators across the state are making the choice to call 811 before they dig. If you're on hold for 5 minutes, you'll have the option to leave your number and get a call back when the next agent is available. The call back will come from a local number with a 615 area code. Some service providers may flag the call as potential spam, so be aware. As ticket volume continues to increase, it’s possible that hold times will remain long. In August we accepted 92,276 locate requests bringing us up to 696,819 tickets for the year, an increase of more than 6% over the same time in 2020 (we saw an increase by the same percentage in 2020 over 2019). We encourage you to try E-Ticket or Remote Ticket Entry (RTE) to save you the time and aggravation of being on hold. These online methods of ticket entry currently make up a little over 46% of our incoming tickets. If your call is not for an emergency or complex locate request, please consider entering it online through our E-Ticket platform. You may be able to register for an account and have the ticket submitted in less time than you would be holding for. Our Locate Request Agents review E-Tickets to ensure that all required information is provided and then the ticket is saved and transmitted utilities. Once the ticket has been reviewed and saved, you will receive a confirmation email that includes the ticket number. Callers also have the option of RTE through the ticket portal, which is a great solution for heavy users who need multiple tickets each day or a large number of tickets each week. Even if you don’t use RTE for new tickets, it’s an efficient way to update your existing tickets. Updating your tickets through RTE is quick to sign up for and easy to learn, so it can save you some serious time if you currently call in a lot of updates. There’s really not much to it – we send you a short video to watch when you get your user credentials, and you’re ready to go! If you want to be a true power user, RTE can also be used to enter your normal locate requests. It’s a live system, so as soon as you enter and save the ticket information, you will receive a ticket number. We have training videos online so that you can learn how to enter your tickets through RTE on your own time. An important reminder: if your situation is an emergency, second notice, or something else that’s not a normal ticket or an update, you will need to call in. To get started with RTE for new tickets or updates, visit https://tennessee811.odoo.com/remote-ticket-entry or let one of our Locate Request Agents know you want to become an RTE user.
When time is money, every job can feel like a priority, but that doesn’t mean every locate request qualifies as an emergency. If your situation is an imminent danger to life, health, or property, or if your work includes repair or restoration of service then it qualifies as an emergency under state law. An immediate emergency should be declared only if there is imminent danger, and you should have a crew either on-site or en route. The idea is that someone’s life, health, or property will be endangered if you do not begin your excavation work within two hours. An immediate emergency gives locators a two-hour response window, but an excavator can begin work immediately provided they contact 811 as soon as feasibly possible. Examples of an immediate emergency could be a water main break, a gas line rupture, certain communications outages, etc. An impending emergency should be requested when there is a potential danger to life, health, or property and for repair or restoration of service. In other words, if a repair isn’t made soon, it could escalate into an immediate risk to life, health, or property. Because of the potential to escalate, excavation can’t wait 72 business hours like a normal locate, but it doesn’t have to be started in less than two hours. In this case, you tell us what time you will be there to start the work and that is the time the utilities are allotted to locate their facilities. It gives some planning time for the utilities to get out there – they don’t have to drop everything and be there in two hours or less, but they don’t have three working days either. An impending emergency gives some scheduling flexibility. All emergency locates must be called in, and Tennessee 811 accepts those calls 24/7. Remember, every time someone calls in an emergency ticket, it jumps ahead of normal locates, so it shouldn’t be used unless there really is an emergency – immediate or impending. Failure to call in a normal locate request on time is not an emergency and neither is realizing that your normal ticket didn’t cover a big enough area. If your situation is not an emergency, but you need a quicker turnaround, we can submit your ticket as a short notice. A short notice ticket is only a request – not a guarantee – but you get to specify a desired start date and time to see if the locators can respond any quicker than the time allowed for on a normal locate. Misrepresentation of an emergency is a violation of state law and is subject to penalties if reported to the state. First offense is required training, subsequent offenses can result in training and monetary penalties up to $10,000. Willful noncompliance or gross negligence violations can result in penalties up to $15,000. So far in the life of the enforcement program, there have been 16 citations for false emergencies across the state.
Answer : When you call in a locate request, our Locate Request Agent draws a point, line, or polygon on the map to represent the area where you’ll be excavating. To make sure they map the right area, the agent will ask you for the nearest intersecting street and the approximate distance from that intersection to your job site. When we’re dealing with an address, the locator will typically use their GPS to navigate to the location, so the distance and direction is not typically used for getting the locator to the site – it’s making sure they ever get that ticket in the first place. The area mapped by our agent determines which utilities are notified, so it is always important to be as accurate as possible. The best practice is to have an idea of the distance and direction from the nearest intersection for every locate request, even if you’re digging at a specific address. In the case of a point address, we may be able to simply confirm what our maps show instead of asking you to provide distance and direction. Currently we have point addressing (E911 addresses) in 63 of the 95 counties in Tennessee. Point addressing provides a precise point for an address location which is then manually adjusted by our GIS team where needed, allowing the highest level of accuracy. If the address you give for your work location matches a point address on the map, we will still need the closest intersecting street for verification, but we won’t need to ask you for the distance. However, if the address you give shows more than a half mile from the intersection or doesn’t match a point address, then we have to have the approximate distance from that intersection to make sure the correct area is drawn. Maps are never 100% accurate, and not all maps are equal, so distance and direction is a tool to ensure the accuracy of your locate request. We want one ticket to get the job done for you, so help us be thorough the first time around.
Our online ticket portal is currently the home of Remote Ticket Entry and the Positive Response System. During the first quarter of 2022, we are consolidating e-ticket into the same online portal and we’re adding a new type of e-ticket specifically for homeowners or residents. Read on to learn more about everything you can do in our ticket portal online. E-ticket for homeowners Designed for homeowners who don’t submit locate requests on a routine basis. No login or account is needed. Simple “wizard” style of ticket entry. Tickets are reviewed by our contact center before they are processed. E-ticket for professionals Designed for contractors and utilities. Users register for an account. Enter up to 30 tickets (per company) per day. Tickets are reviewed by our contact center before they are processed. Remote Ticket Entry (RTE) Designed for contractors and utilities that enter a large volume of tickets. Users must sign a disclaimer. Enter new tickets or update existing tickets. Training is required for entry of new tickets, not required for updates. Tickets are entered live, meaning they are not reviewed by our staff before they are saved and sent through to member utilities. A percentage of tickets are checked by contact center staff after they are saved for quality control purposes. Find Tickets (Ticket Search) Does not require a login or account. Anyone can view, print, or export tickets. View utility responses to a locate request that you called in or entered online. Can also be accessed through our smartphone app. Positive Response Only for member utilities. Logins are provided when a utility becomes a member of TN811. View and respond to locate requests in your service area. The direct URL for the ticket portal is https://gcv3.tn811.com/geocall/portal. You can also get there through our main website at www.tn811.com.