Press Information:
Stacey Johnson
Miner & Miner, a Telvent company
Telephone: +1 970 223 1888 x151

General Information: info@miner.com

Fort Collins, CO -- During the winter storm season, Truckee Donner Public Utility District (PUD), a utility serving 13,500 electric customers in the Lake Tahoe area, has greatly benefited from the use of Responder, Miner & Miner's Outage Management System. Responder allows the PUD to quickly respond to customers, efficiently manage crews and incidents, eliminate redundant service orders and customer callbacks, and improve overall customer service.

One of the worst storms of the last twenty years hit the Sierra Nevada Mountains in December 2003. The difficulty the PUD encountered in responding to their service area during the storm helped the staff and board realize their current technology and methods were insufficient in managing electrical outages. Wanting a GIS-centric approach to outage management, Truckee Donner PUD selected Responder, a choice that allowed data design, maintenance, and integration costs to be kept to a minimum. Responder's Web/Server call center approach also ensured that personal customer contacts remained part of the utility's business procedures without increasing IT administration costs.

“Because we are a small utility, we wanted to ensure that the outage application could take advantage of existing GIS asset management data so the costs could be contained,” said Ian Fitzgerald, GIS Coordinator for Truckee Donner PUD.

The entire implementation took only three months and Responder is now part of the integrated GIS system. Four district staff members working with ArcFM or Designer complete their daily designs that are then posted and available in the Responder environment. The PUD's field response, field safety, crew management, and customer service departments can now leverage the accurate and timely information found in the OMS.