How many damages occur each
year?
What are the primary causes of damages and near misses?
Are these events increasing or decreasing – and why?
Are some educational campaigns more effective than
others?
These are some of the many questions
that the CGA is working to answer through the collection of data on
a national level. Being able to answer these questions remains a
necessary step in ensuring the safety and protection of
people and the infrastructure.
In November 2003, the CGA
launched DIRT (www.cga-dirt.com) - a secure web
application for the collection and reporting of underground damage
information. DIRT allows users to submit damage and near miss
reports; browse files submitted by the user’s organization;
administer role-based company and user information; edit personal
profiles; change/retrieve password; and submit feedback and
questions.
Since launching DIRT, the number of records submitted has steadily
increased each year with almost 63% of estimated damages being submitted
into DIRT for 2008. As more companies voluntarily submit data, we
are better able to report back to the industry on the state of damage
prevention throughout North America.
Purpose
of Data Collection
The primary purpose in collecting underground
facility damage data is to analyze data, to learn why events occur,
and how actions by industry can prevent them in the future; thereby,
ensuring the safety and protection of people and the
infrastructure. Data collection will
allow the CGA to identify root causes, perform trend analysis, and help
educate all stakeholders so that damages can be reduced through
effective practices and procedures.
The CGA's purpose is to
reduce underground facility damage, which threatens the public's safety
and costs billions of dollars each year. In order to better understand
where, how and why these damages are occurring, we require accurate and
comprehensive data from all stakeholders. The data will be analyzed and
our findings will be issued via comprehensive reports.
The data will NOT be used for enforcement purposes
or to try and determine damage liability. The individual identities of
parties involved with records submitted will be kept
confidential.
In order to fully understand the complex
issues surrounding underground facility damage on a national scale,
thorough analysis of a large volume of statistical data is
required. Although numerous agencies of various types and sizes
have tracked similar data elements, there has been no prior coordinated
analysis that represents all of the stakeholder
groups.
Getting
Started
- Review the "DIRT Documents" posted to
gain knowledge of the development of DIRT and the submission
process.
-
Click on "DIRT Q&A" to review
specific user questions addressed by the Data Reporting & Evaluation
Committee.
-
Review the Registration Overview
and visit www.cga-dirt.com to
begin the process.
-
Begin submitting
data.
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