Last week, DCA played host to the March meeting of MISS Utility of Delmarva. It was a much larger group than I had anticipated with organizations ranging from utility providers to municipalities comprising the Miss Utility Board of Directors. The discussion covered the issues you would expect like safety and outreach to the public. The portion of the agenda that most caught my attention though was the volume of tickets and communication issues around the status of tickets. There was also discussion around missed ticket processing times and the role that plays in project schedules.

For the reported first two months of this year, MISS Utility of Delmarva had 39,219 incoming tickets as compared to 35,343 incoming tickets during the same 2022 period. For the same months, the organization processed 202,270 outgoing tickets this year compared to 201,042 outgoing tickets last year. As its name indicates, the organization covers all of Delaware plus the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Delaware accounted for 13,650 incoming tickets while having 75,406 of its outgoing tickets processed.

I believe, and I took from my conversation with the board’s leadership, that there is opportunity for improvement if the right parties get together to discuss the challenges. Identifying and bringing together the “right parties” is something we do at DCA all the time. To continue that tradition on this subject, I will be working with DCA’s members who perform work in the right-of-way to schedule a meeting with MISS Utility leadership to look for opportunities to improve the system. So, if your company’s work requires interaction with MISS Utility, I will be reaching out to ask for its participation in this effort. If you have thoughts on working with MISS Utility or just want to make sure you don’t get missed as this meeting is being put together, feel free to shoot me an email at bshort@e-dca.org.