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Utilities tell board that linking outreach to reduced damage requires sustained data and budget
Summary
Participants described surveying, damage-investigation datasets, ticket-volume and impressions as available metrics; they said detailed causal attribution requires investment and time, and noted April and summer as peak outreach windows.
Utilities at the workshop described several measurement approaches — required public‑awareness effectiveness surveys, damage-investigation metrics (pipe size, outage size, ticket markers) and digital metrics such as impressions and scan counts — but said sustained investment is necessary to link outreach to a reduction in actual damages.
A PG&E damage-process manager (speaker 9) noted homeowner concerns about unfamiliar markings and the limits on sharing personal ticket data. Participants reported a seasonal pattern: ticket volumes spike in April (National Safe Digging Month) and carry through summer, with quieter periods in late fall and December. Several utilities said they use impressions and damage-per-thousand at the county level as proxies while longer-term causal studies are planned.
