I have blogged previously about research at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. that found that the indirect and social cost of underground utility damage was 29 X the direct cost.  At the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance conference Scott Landes, of Infrastructure Resources LLC, offered a checklist of the direct, indirect and societal cost of damage to underground infrastructure.  Articles about the true cost of damage to water infrastructure and telecom infrastructure have appeared in DP-PRO.

Items that may or may not be collected

• External collection costs/agency commissions
• Barricades/traffic control
• Permits (city/county/state/provincial) to install replacement cables/pipelines
• Legal fees and litigation costs
• Exposing the damage for repair
• Materials used in repair
• Restoration of the area
• Actual cost of internal labour
• Heavy equipment used
• Generator/power equipment
• Food, lodging, and travel expense
• Emergency mobilization (contractor/locator)

Time

• Damage investigation, on-site and follow-up
• Internal staff collection efforts
• Out of service complaints
• Insurance resolution discussions
• Overtime for unexpected increases in workload
• Employee time/travel for depositions/trial

Overlooked/difficult to track

• Lost customers
• Customer loss of use (refunds/credits)
• Resolution of customer complaints
• Engineering/reengineering due to damage
• Establishing outage bridge to coordinate services interruption
• Support staff (3-20) for outage bridge
• Workload delays
• Future failure points (damage may weaken system and lead to future failure unattributed to 3rd party)
• Damage data capture and submission (software and/or manual)
• Emergency on call ticket notifications
• Facility owner records updates
• Reporting requirements (FAA, 911, PHMSA)

Soft costs

• Loss of brand confidence
• Negative public feedback
• Difficulty maintaining customer relationships, especially large businesses, with inconsistent services

Societal costs

• Loss of 911/emergency services
• Business closing
• Employee downtime
• Road closures/traffic delays

This is a very interesting list because it provides a perspective on the comprehensive impact on society of disruptions to utilities and telecom resulting from underground damage during construction.