The City of Burnaby has always been a staunch advocate and practitioner of community safety and safe digging best practices. The City was one of the earliest local governments to join BC 1 Call. Today, 70% of B.C. local governments are members.
The city more than just walks the walk for safe communities. It is always keen to share its experience and tools with other local governments in the spirit of cooperation. BC 1 Call could not be happier to see this leadership recognized through the 2022 Spirit of Innovation Award conferred by the Municipal Information Systems Association of B.C. for the City of Burnaby’s Automated Dial Before You Dig System. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
However you look at it, Burnaby’s Dial Before You Dig System represents innovation that matters. For example, it:
- allows the City of Burnaby to scale to meet continuously rising demand of requests for information on buried infrastructure by streamlining and automating the City of Burnaby’s locate request ticket intake and response processes
- vastly improved customer experience by enabling super-fast, round the clock response times to professional excavator and homeowner locate requests (7x24x365)
- enables real-time monitoring and tracking of locate request notifications, City of Burnaby responses and issues to ensure that service is always timely and meets expectations
- Saves significant operational time and budget to receive and process locate requests, allowing staff to focus on high value work.
Herman Louie, GIS analyst and the architect behind Burnaby’s Automated Dial Before You Dig System identified the need for a higher capacity model early. “In 1994 the City of Burnaby had 140 information package requests for the year. By 2017, the volume of information package requests made to the City of Burnaby had increased to 8,469. That’s an increase of over 6,000% in 23 years. With population density and development trends continuing on an ever-upward trajectory, that curve is likely to continue. Today, the City of Burnaby receives just under 10,000 notifications/year from BC 1 Call, where 100% of our locate request notifications are now sourced. Essentially, BC 1 Call is our front door for locate requests, and the City of Burnaby is able to provide infrastructure mapping and safe digging directions within 3-5 minutes of notification.”
Click here to learn more about Burnaby’s Automated Dial Before You Dig System.