One-Call

The general term for the system that notifies utility owners about planned excavation. In the United States it is 811; in Canada it is a province-by-province network including Alberta One-Call, BC 1 Call, Info-Excavation in Quebec, and Ontario One Call.

A one-call ticket is a notification, not a survey. It reaches the facility owners who have registered as members, and each of those owners marks the lines it owns and nothing else. The boundary is usually the meter, the pedestal, or the edge of the right-of-way. Everything on the owner side of that boundary — and anything belonging to a non-member — is outside the ticket. Calling one-call is free and is required by law before excavation across the United States and in most of Canada; private locating covers the rest of the site.