Street construction activity has grown in recent years to aggravating levels for some communities. The public, their municipal governments and many utilities have expressed interest in better tools to “communicate, coordinate and cooperate” in projects that involve street construction.

The infrastructure that supports our modern economy is aging. The construction boom that we experienced in recent years promises to continue for many years to come. Some municipalities are facing street infrastructure construction programs of epic proportions: 

• Recently in Houston, for example, “fifty-eight percent of all downtown’s streets are being rebuilt”. 

• San Francisco is facing an unprecedented level of street construction. “Plans submitted by utility companies show (over a recent 5 year period) over one third of City blocks will be excavated to replace aging pipes, 40 miles of utility wires will be placed underground and many blocks of substandard pavement will be replaced.”

Construction coordination between utilities and between utilities and municipal and state highway departments has always been problematic.

Infrastructure construction projects are planned, designed and implemented by a multitude of different utilities and governmental entities. Dozens of different organizations can serve a single city, and each will have unique needs and methods to manage their infrastructure. Each of these individual organizations can, in turn, serve many communities and may need to coordinate with hundreds of local governments. There is a critical need for an organized coordination effort to promote the best use of our dwindling public resources (newly resurfaced roadways) and identify opportunities for collaboration between utilities and local governments.

Traditional methods of coordination, municipal sponsored ‘coordination meetings’, can easily become overwhelmed and become less effective, in the new realities of modern infrastructure management. This is the problem that Openshark LF has been created to solve.