Case study · Irth
Bennett built and operates the underground-utility damage-prevention model that Irth sells at scale across North America. The model ranks risk tightly enough to put roughly half of all incidents in the riskiest 8% of tickets, with 83% more damage risk surfaced vs. manual field review, and $9M+ in savings on track for a single deployment.
50%
of all incidents concentrate in the riskiest 8% of tickets the model flags
83%
more damage risk surfaced vs. manual field review
$9M
Operational savings on track for 2026 at one Fortune 1,000 client
70+
Models running in North America today. ~100 by year-end 2026
Bennett built and operates the risk model inside Irth Insights, scoring 811 tickets before field work begins. The model became a direct recurring revenue line for Irth. Customers see the business case quickly: fewer damages, lower operating expense, & measurable payback.
Source · Irth Insights · 2026 · Curve shape illustrative between the two stated points; replace with the measured curve
Every 811 excavation ticket is scored and ranked from highest risk to lowest, and damage is rare, in only 1 in 1,000 to 2,000 tickets.
The curve answers one question: if a team inspects only the riskiest slice of tickets, what share of incidents does that slice contain?
An extreme imbalance: finding the ~0.05–0.1% of tickets that go wrong is a problem where naive models fail by default. The lift below is the result.
Left end: half of all incidents concentrate in the riskiest 8% of tickets. A lean field team focuses there first.
Right end: the safest quarter of tickets carries almost none of the incidents, so it can clear automatically with no site visit.
The diagonal is the baseline with no model: inspecting 10 percent of tickets at random covers 10 percent of incidents. Each operator picks its operating point by weighing inspection cost against the cost of a strike.
30%
Stake Center
Professional locating co. · All damages 2025
Damages down, with ~20% gain in locate efficiency. Full-year 2025.
>17%
Colorado Springs Utilities
Municipal utility · All damages
Reduction in damages.
>10%
Brightspeed
Telecom · Fiber damages
Telecom, third-party study. Drop in fiber damages. 28% operating-expense reduction. Payback in eight days.
