Guidelines for Coordination of Utility Relocation

The report from the recently completed Guidelines for Coordination of Utility Relocation project has been approved by the Transportation Association of Canada’s (TAC) Chief Engineers’ Council (CEC).

Advanced by the volunteer efforts of the Public Utilities Management Subcommittee of TAC’s Maintenance and Construction Standing Committee, the report was developed to improve the overall coordination of utility relocation across the country.

Canadian right-of-way (ROW) owners manage the placement of infrastructure within ROWs to provide a wide variety of public services.  As this demand increases, public ROWs become increasingly crowded and complex. Future projects initiated by various parties can quickly become inefficient and costly without proper coordination. It is the responsibility of both the ROW owners and utility agencies to develop an efficient and consistent utility coordination process that works in the best interests of all stakeholders.

The guidelines are intended to be used by:

• road authority and utility agency managers
• consulting engineers practicing in the highway/utility field
• transit and land developers with applicable projects
• students and individuals entering the construction industry, for training purposes

Developed to encourage consistency and minimize conflicts when coordinating utility relocation projects, the TAC guidelines will provide:

• a brief overview of roles and responsibilities of public road authorities and utility agencies
• a general description of laws, rules, regulators and regulations in the Canadian construction environment
• a flow chart illustrating steps required to successfully navigate from the preliminary design phase of a project to the final, post-construction phase 
• an in-depth description of each phase presented in the flow chart

Project delivery efficiencies are expected to improve after coordination becomes more standardized across the country.  For utility agencies with infrastructure in a variety of areas, the guidelines will provide a consistent process to follow.  It will allow ROW owners to learn from best practices and procedures of different parties and implement a process that will be readily accepted and adopted by utility agencies.

A notice will be posted on TAC’s home page once the publication is ready for sale in the Bookstore.