Methods, apparatus and systems for generating searchable electronic records of underground facility locate and/or marking operations and assessing aspects of same

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed on at least one processing unit, perform a method for assessing an aspect relating to a locate and/or marking operation performed by a locate technician based on an electronic representation of the locate and/or marking operation, the method comprising:

• A) digitally representing, on a display device, at least one underground facility and/or at least one physical locate mark so as to generate an electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation, the locate and/or marking operation being performed by the locate technician in response to a locate request ticket and comprising locating the at least one underground facility within a dig area, and/or identifying using at least one physical locate mark a presence or an absence of the at least one underground facility within the dig area, wherein at least a portion of the dig area is planned to be excavated or disturbed during excavation activities;
• B) determining a length associated with at least a portion of the digitally represented at least one underground facility and/or the digitally represented at least one physical locate mark that is present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• and
• C) based at least in part on the length determined in B), automatically assessing the at least one aspect relating to the locate and/or marking operation,
• wherein the at least one aspect includes a cost associated with the locate and/or marking operation, and wherein in C) the cost associated with the locate and/or marking operation is automatically assessed by the at least one processor based on the length determined in B) and at least one of:
• a price per unit length associated with the digitally represented at least one underground facility and/or the digitally represented at least one physical locate mark that is present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• at least one environmental feature that is present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• a number of tie-downs that are present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• at least one type of the at least one underground facility;
• and
• a location of the dig area.

An apparatus for assessing at least one aspect relating to a locate and/or marking operation performed by a locate technician based on an electronic representation of the locate and/or marking operation, the apparatus comprising:

• a display device;
• a memory to store processor-executable instructions;
• and
• a processing unit coupled to the display device and the memory, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions by the processing unit, the processing unit:
• A) controls the display device to display at least one digitally represented underground facility and/or at least one digitally represented physical locate mark so as to generate an electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation, the locate and/or marking operation being performed by the locate technician in response to a locate request ticket and comprising locating the at least one underground facility within a dig area, and/or identifying using at least one physical locate mark a presence or an absence of the at least one underground facility within the dig area, wherein at least a portion of the dig area is planned to be excavated or disturbed during excavation activities;
• B) determines a length associated with at least a portion of the at least one digitally represented underground facility and/or at least one the digitally represented physical locate mark that is present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• and
• C) based at least in part on the length determined in B), automatically assesses the at least one aspect relating to the locate and/or marking operation,
• wherein the at least one aspect includes a cost associated with the locate and/or marking operation, and wherein in C) the cost associated with the locate and/or marking operation is automatically assessed by the at least one processor based on the length determined in B) and at least one of:
• a price per unit length associated with the digitally represented at least one underground facility and/or the digitally represented at least one physical locate mark that is present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• at least one environmental feature that is present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• a number of tie-downs that are present in the electronic visual representation of the locate and/or marking operation;
• at least one type of the at least one underground facility;
• and
• a location of the dig area.