We recently joined Radiodetection, PointMan, and Frontier Precision for a session on modern utility locating workflows. The focus of the webinar: why utility damages keep increasing despite record infrastructure investment, and what changes when you treat locating as a data capture problem, not just a paint-on-the-ground problem.
Damages are going up, not down
The 2023 Common Ground Alliance DIRT report documented $30 billion in utility damages in a single year. These are recorded, preventable utility strikes, and they are trending in the wrong direction.
More infrastructure spending means more excavations in congested underground environments. As Pete Mann, US Sales Director, Radiodetection pointed out: when we install new utilities to replace old ones, we don’t remove the old ones. So the complexity and risk compounds every year.
The pattern we keep hearing: strikes aren’t caused by lack of effort to prevent them. The locate happened and the mark went down. But somewhere between the field and the office, the data degraded or disappeared.
Outdated workflows don’t win work anymore
For decades, utility locating looked like this: mark it, sketch it, email it, save it somewhere, hope it’s available later.
Every handoff introduces error or latency. By the time location data reaches the engineer, it’s been transcribed, reformatted, or lost.
Traditionally, you needed two crews: one to locate and mark the utility, and a second crew with survey-grade GPS to come back and capture the map. Two trips doubles chances for something to fall through.
While paper sketches and 10-foot GPS accuracy discrepancies were acceptable 15 years ago, we can do better now and legislation is catching up. ASCE standards are raising the bar. Projects today demand GIS-ready deliverables. These are digital files with traceability and coordinates instead of just paint on the ground.
This means companies winning work right now are those that can deliver RTK-georeferenced records same-day.
Colorado is an example of what’s coming
On January 14, 2021, the Colorado Department of Transportation mandated sub-inch accuracy for utility locatin, along with standardized datums, coordinate systems, and TMOS codes.
David Little from Frontier Precision was on the beta team. He said the mandate “turned my life upside down.”
CDOT’s adoption of a permanent digital record for all underground utilities is a bellwether for where the industry is going. Gone are the days of impermanent locates requiring survey crews to come back and re-capture what was already in the ground. The added effect has certainly been a reduction in utility strikes, by up to 97% in some cases.
What makes it work: CDOT runs quarterly vendor review meetings where contractors and vendors collaboratively solve workflow challenges.
The credential-hell problem
When we started working with utility locators, the biggest pain point was logistics instead of accuracy.
RTK networks existed, but using them meant knowing your mount point, managing different credentials per region, and hoping those credentials still worked when you crossed coverage areas. Teams were “juggling credentials” and failed connections meant time lost or falling back to 10-foot+ GPS inaccuracy.
What kept coming up: “We need something that works like our phone. Connect once, and it just works wherever we go.”
PointMan’s streamlined experience
PointMan had been hearing the same thing from their users. So when they integrated with the Point One RTK network, they opted to not just pass through NTRIP credentials like traditional methods but instead use the Point One GraphQL API to push configuration directly to devices.
Users just select “Point One” from a dropdown. Mount points, ports, servers are all handled automatically. A locator who’s never touched NTRIP settings can collect centimeter-level data in under a minute. When a locator finishes a section in the field, the office sees it immediately.
The platform programmatically manages credentials and syncs data in real time, without asking field techs to understand the plumbing.
“Be bold and decisive”
One national utility locating company runs over 500 licenses with Point One across their field teams. They’d been on a patchwork of regional providers, different credentials, different reliability, different support contacts, depending on location. They switched everything over in a matter of days.
When we asked how they managed the transition, the answer was simple: don’t do it incrementally. Commit fully, train the teams, and execute. The overhead of running two systems in parallel is worse than just making the switch.
Their results were consistent service everywhere, one support relationship, and data accurate enough to deliver same-day centimeter-accurate results.
“The dream is truly alive”
The most compelling aspect of the webinar was David from Frontier Precision showing a recorded demo of augmented reality displaying utility data on a phone screen. Surface data (the white ball) combined with locate data (the orange ball), rendered in real-time as you move through the environment.
With accurate, georeferenced data, you can navigate back to a buried utility using GNSS, then verify with a locator. You can reduce buffer sizes, which reduces call tags. This helps folks cut the number of test holes required on a project.
David mentioned CDOT doing 40,000 test holes on a major infrastructure project just to verify utility locations. If you can reduce that by even a quarter, the savings potential is massive.
As he put it: “The dream really and truly is alive.”
Questions to ask
If you’re building hardware or software for utility locating, or evaluating RTK for your own operations, here’s what we’ve learned matters:
What does the field experience actually look like?
Watch someone configure credentials in your current workflow. Count the steps. Count the failure points. See how long the process takes.
What happens at coverage boundaries?
Does the user need to re-authenticate? Switch mount points? Or does it just work?
Can you push configuration programmatically?
If your platform can’t automate credential management, you’re asking field techs to be network administrators.
Who owns the infrastructure?
When something doesn’t connect, how many vendors are involved in the answer? What’s the estimated time to resolution?
What’s the training model?
Multiple speakers emphasized this: you can’t hand the gear to a tech and say “figure it out.” Training and ownership is critical to adoption and proper use.
Try the workflow yourself
We’ve partnered with Radiodetection, PointMan, and Frontier Precision on a bundle that puts this workflow in your hands.
Purchase the Radiodetection RD8200 SG, which has high-accuracy GNSS built into the locator, eliminating the need for a second survey crew, and get 12 months of Point One RTK and PointMan included. Sub-inch accuracy flowing directly into a mapping platform, deliverable same-day.
If you’re exploring integration for your own platform, we’re happy to talk through it.