Appendix A Glossary of Terms and Definitions
For the purpose of the Common Ground Study, a common set of definitions are used. These definitions were arrived at through a consensus process similar to the methodology used to identify the best practices.
811 Center: A communications center that administers a system through which excavators request buried facilities to be marked by owners/operators. Centers in the United States are referred to as "811 centers" due to their use of the 811 three-digit phone number. Similar centers with a variety of names exist internationally.75/
Abandoned Line or Facility: Any underground or submerged line or facility no longer in use.
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR): Any process or procedure other than litigation that is agreed to by the disputing parties as the means for resolving a dispute, and is binding or non-binding pursuant to the agreement by the disputing parties. ADR includes, but is not limited to, advisory boards, arbitration, mini-trials, mediation, partnering, and standing neutrals.
As-built Drawing: A detailed depiction of facilities as installed in the field.
Attribute: Characteristic that helps describe the data.
Backfill: To fill the void created by excavating.
Business Day (or Working Day): Any day of the week except Saturday and Sunday and state/provincial and federal legal holidays.
Cathodic Protection: The process of arresting corrosion on a buried or submerged structure by electrically reversing the natural chemical reaction. This includes, but is not limited to, installation of a sacrificial anode bed, use of a rectifier based system, or any combination of these or other similar systems. Wiring is installed between the buried or submerged structure and all anodes and rectifiers; wiring is also installed to test stations that are used to measure the effectiveness of the cathodic protection system.
Compliance: Adherence to the statute and its regulations.
Cross Bore: An intrusion of an existing underground utility or underground structure by a second utility resulting in direct contact between the transactions of the utilities that compromises the integrity of either the utility or underground structure.
Damage: Any impact or exposure that results in the need to repair an underground facility due to a weakening or the partial or complete destruction of the facility, including, but not limited to, the protective coating, lateral support, cathodic protection, or housing for the line, device, or facility.
Damage Reporting: The immediate reporting to a 811 center and the facility owner/operator of any damage caused or discovered in the course of excavation or demolition work; to immediately alert the occupants of premises as to any emergency that such person may create or discover at or near such premises; to contact emergency responders, if necessary, as quickly as practical.
Demolition Work: The partial or complete destruction by any means of a structure served by, or adjacent, to an underground line or facility. Designer: Any architect, engineer, or other person who prepares or issues a drawing or blueprint for a construction or other project that requires excavation or demolition work.
Digital Imagery: A computer-compatible version of land-related information including, for example, topography, physical features, road/street networks, and buried facility networks obtained from a variety of sources including, for example, aerial photographs, satellite photographs, road maps, survey plans, and buried facility records.31
Downtime: Lost time reported by a stakeholder on the Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) field form for an excavation project due to failure of one or more stakeholders to comply with applicable damage prevention regulations.51
Electronic Positive Response: Communication by telephone, fax, e-mail or Internet from a facility owner/operator to an excavator providing the status of an owner/operator's statutorily required response to a notice of intent to excavate.42
Electronic White Lining (EWL): The process in which an excavator identifies where proposed excavation will occur by drawing a polygon shape on a GIS map; that shape is delivered electronically by the 811 center to its member facility operators.80
Emergency: A sudden or unforeseen occurrence involving a clear and imminent danger to life, health, or property; the interruption of essential utility services; or the blockage of transportation facilities that requires immediate action.
Emergency Notice: A communication to the 811 center to alert the involved underground facility owners/operators of the need to excavate as a result of a sudden or unforeseen occurrence or national emergency involving a clear and imminent danger to life, health, environment, or property (including the interruption of essential utility services or the blockage of transportation facilities) that requires immediate excavation.
Emergency Response: A facility owner/operator’s response to an emergency notice.
Event: The occurrence of facility damage, near miss, or downtime.
Excavate or Excavation: Any operation using non-mechanized or mechanized equipment, demolition, or explosives in the movement of earth, rock, or other material below existing grade.50
Excavator: Any person proposing to or engaging in excavation or demolition work for himself or for another person.
Facility: An underground or submerged conductor, pipe, or structure used to provide electric or communications service (including, but not limited to, traffic control loops and similar underground or submerged devices); or an underground or submerged pipe used in carrying, providing, or gathering (typically between the wellhead and transmission line) gas, oil or oil product, sewage, storm drainage, water, or other liquid service (including, but not limited to, irrigation systems) and appurtenances thereto.56
Facility Owner/Operator: Any person, utility, municipality, authority, political subdivision, or other person or entity who owns, operates, or controls the operation of an underground line/facility.
Geographic Information System (GIS): An organized collection of computer hardware, software, and geographic data used to capture, store, update, maintain, analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced information.
Geospatial Data: Data that identifies the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features and boundaries on the earth.
Global Positioning System (GPS): A system consisting of 25 satellites used to provide precise position, velocity, and time information to users anywhere on earth. Location information can be received using a GPS receiver. The GPS receiver helps determine locations on the earth’s surface by collecting signals from three or more satellites through a process called triangulation. Simple and inexpensive hand-held receivers provide an accuracy of ±100 meters of a true position. More sophisticated receivers that use additional technologies or that post-process the original GPS data can provide sub-meter accuracy.
Grade: The surface of the earth (i.e., ground level) upon which a structure is built or prepared.
Grounding Systems: A system of one or more ground conductors or ground rods providing a low-resistance path-to-earth ground potential through a mechanical connection to structures, conductors, and equipment.
Joint Trench: A trench containing two or more facilities that are buried together by design or agreement.52
Land Base: Mapped data that depicts features of the surface of the earth and is tied to real-world geographic coordinates, such as latitude and longitude.
Large/Complex Project: A single project, or a series of repetitive, small, short-term projects that are related in scope, that impact facilities over a long period of time or a large area.30
Latitude (Lat): Distance measured north or south of the equator.
Line: See “Geographic Information System (GIS)”
Locate: To indicate the existence of a line or facility by establishing a mark through the use of stakes, paint, flagging, whiskers, or some other customary manner that approximately determines the location of that line or facility.44
Locate Request: A communication between an excavator and 811 center personnel in which a request for locating underground facilities is processed.
Locator: A person whose job is to locate lines or facilities.47
Longitude (Long): Distance measured east or west from a reference meridian (Greenwich).
Marking Standards: The methods by which a facility owner/operator indicates its line or facility in accordance with the APWA guidelines. (See Appendix B, “Uniform Color Code and Marking Guidelines.”)
Member Database: Structured collection of data defined for a particular use, user, system, or program; it may be sequential, network, hierarchical, relational, or semantic.
Membership: Persons who participate voluntarily in a 811 center because they have an interest in the protection of lines or facilities or because they have a statutory responsibility to protect lines or facilities.
Minor or Routine Maintenance of Transportation Facilities: The adding of granular material to unpaved roads, road shoulders, airport runways, airport taxiways, and railroad roadbeds; removal and application of patches to the surface of paved roads, runways, and taxiways; cleaning and sealing road, airport, and canal lock facility cracks or joints; replacing railroad ties and related appliances excluding road crossings; adjusting ballast on top of railroad roadbed; cleaning of paved drainage inlets and paved ditches or pipes.
Near Miss: An event where damage (as defined above) did not occur, but a clear potential for damage was identified.43
Notice: The timely communication by the excavator/designer to the 811 center that alerts the involved underground facility owners/operators of the intent to excavate.
Notification Period: The time beginning when notice is given and ending when the work may begin.
One Call Center: See "811 Center."
Orthophoto: An aerial photograph of a site that has been differentially rectified to correct the distortion caused by the terrain and attitude (tip, tilt, and yaw) of the camera. A multicolored, distortion-free, photographic image.
Person: Any individual or legal entity, public or private.
Planning: An activity at the beginning of a project where information is gathered and decisions are made regarding the route or location of a proposed excavation based on constraints, including the locations of existing facilities, anticipated conflicts and the relative costs of relocating existing facilities, or more expensive construction for the proposed facility.
Plat: A map or representation on paper of a piece of land subdivided into lots, with streets, alleys, etc., usually drawn to a scale.
Positive Response: Communication with the excavator prior to excavation to ensure that all contacted (typically via the 811 centers) owner/operators have located their underground facilities and have appropriately marked any potential conflicts with the areas of planned excavation.
Pothole (a.k.a., test hole): Exposure of a facility by safe excavation practices to ascertain the precise horizontal and vertical position of underground lines or facilities. Accepted safe excavation practices vary by state/local jurisdiction, but the preferred techniques include hand digging with extreme caution and/or vacuum excavation. (See Best Practice 5-32.)86/
Pre-marking or Positive Site Identification: The marking of the proposed excavation site/work area consistent with APWA guidelines.
Private Service Line: A buried facility/line wholly owned and operated, on private property, by an entity or individual that is not in the business of providing a product or service via that buried facility/line.
Project Owner: The person financially responsible for the undertaking of a project that involves excavation or demolition.27
Public: The general population or community at large.28
Railroad Operating Corridor: The property that is essential to a railroad company to enable it to discharge its function and duties as a common carrier by rail. It includes the road bed, right of way, tracks, bridges, stations, and such like property.29
Root Cause: The primary reason an event occurred.48
Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE): An engineering process for accurately identifying the quality of underground utility information needed for excavation plans and for acquiring and managing that level of information during the development of a project.
Test Hole: See definition for Pothole.86/
Ticket Number: A unique identification number assigned by the 811 center to each locate request.49
Tolerance Zone: The space in which a line or facility is located and in which special care is to be taken.
Vacuum Excavation: A means of soil extraction through vacuum; water or air jet devices are commonly used for breaking the ground.38