How utilities plan field crews around road closures and traffic
Each morning, check every job on the day's work orders for closures and slow roads nearby, then route each depot's crews so they lose less time driving.
A utility plans field crews around traffic by checking each of the day's jobs for road closures, roadworks and slow roads near the site before crews leave, then putting each crew's jobs in an order that avoids the worst of it. A meter replacement next to a closed road moves to the afternoon or to another crew; a substation visit on a jammed ring road goes first, before the peak. For planned work weeks ahead, history of how busy each road is by hour shows when to book a lane closure with the least disruption.
This article is for dispatch, field operations and work planning teams at electricity, water, gas and telecom network operators, and for the contractors who work for them. It covers which road facts help, how to read live traffic data honestly, a worked morning, the mistakes that cost crew hours, and an AI employee that checks the day's work orders at dawn.
Two kinds of road facts, for two kinds of work
- For today's jobs: incidents. The Traffic incidents block checks around each job site for road closures, roadworks and other incidents as online maps show them right now, and gives each site how many are nearby and the closest one.
- For today's jobs: speed. Traffic Flow measures the roads around each site at the moment the flow runs: the current speed, the speed when the roads are free, the jam factor from 0 to 10 and the busiest road. It does not count cars.
- For planned work: history. In the United Arab Emirates, Regional data holds the cars counted and their speed hour by hour since January 2021 on the road nearest each place. Elsewhere, run Traffic Flow at the hours you care about for a few weeks and keep the results.
- For any job outdoors: weather. Weather forecast flags rain, wind and heat at each site, which changes what work can safely go ahead.
How to read live traffic for a crew
Read the jam factor, not the speed alone. A road moving at 30 km/h is fine in a city centre where it is always 30, and bad on a ring road where it is usually 80. The jam factor compares the two for you: near 0 is free flowing, near 10 is standing still. A closure next to a site matters only if it blocks the way in; the incident's street and district tell the dispatcher whether it does.
A worked morning in Dubai
Here is a made-up example. A water network contractor in Dubai has 42 jobs on the day's work orders across three depots: leak repairs, valve checks and new connections. The work-order system writes the jobs into a sheet at 5:30 each morning.
- New rows starts the flow when the day's jobs land in the sheet.
- Traffic incidents checks within 1 km of each job and adds the number of closures and roadworks nearby and the closest one.
- Traffic Flow adds the jam factor and the busiest road around each job.
- Weather forecast adds the day's highest temperature and wind at each job.
- Branch sends jobs with a closure within 300 m, or a jam factor above 7, to a list for the dispatcher to look at.
- Route planner orders the rest into one route for each crew, using the crew named on each job in the sheet, with the minutes between jobs.
- Email sends the dispatcher the routes and the flagged jobs, with a map.
In this made-up morning, five jobs are flagged: three sit beside the same overnight roadworks and are moved to one crew in the afternoon, two are on a jammed main road and go first. The other 37 go out in route order. Over weeks, the contractor also uses road traffic history on the roads by its planned valve replacements to book them in the quietest hours, which in this example fall in the early afternoon on Fridays.
Mistakes to avoid
- Treating live speed as a forecast. Traffic Flow measures now. Use history for planning and live data for the morning's choices.
- Expecting car counts from live traffic. Live data gives speeds and congestion. Counts by hour exist only for UAE roads through Regional data.
- Routing emergency work with the planned work. Emergencies go straight to the nearest free crew. Keep them out of the morning routes and re-plan when they arrive.
- Checking only the job's street. A closure on the access road a few hundred metres away can stop a truck. Look within about 1 km.
Doing it with an AI employee
The morning steps above make one AI employee for dispatch. The blocks in order: New rows (or a Schedule at 5:30 with My data holding the jobs), Traffic incidents, Traffic Flow, Weather forecast, Branch, Split by territory when crews are not tied to depots, Route planner, then Email and a map. What lands in the dispatcher's inbox before crews leave: each crew's route in order, the flagged jobs with the closure or jam that flagged them, and a map of the day. Crews can get their own route on WhatsApp Business instead.
Starting points: Closures near substations for field crews, Tower field visits around weather and closures, Road closures and storms at today's install sites and Road speeds outside my depots, every hour.
Questions
How current are road closures?
Traffic incidents reads them as online maps show them at the moment the flow runs. Run it shortly before crews leave for the freshest picture.
Can the flow re-plan when an emergency comes in?
Start a second flow from the emergency, for example a new row in an emergencies sheet, that finds the nearest free crew. Keep the morning plan as it is.
Why no car counts outside the UAE?
Live traffic data gives speeds and congestion, not counts. Hour-by-hour counts since 2021 are available only for roads in the United Arab Emirates.
Does it work for crews that cover a whole region?
Yes. Use Split by territory to share the day's jobs into compact areas of about the same size, one per crew, then Route planner for each.