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Spray-painted colours on a road surface, each standing for a buried service.
Also known as: Utility locate marks, Dig marks, Street paint markings, Service locate colours
The coloured lines sprayed on pavements and roads before excavation are a code, not decoration. In the widely used North American scheme red marks electric power, yellow gas and other flammables, orange communications, blue drinking water, green sewers and drains, purple reclaimed water, pink temporary survey markings and white the proposed excavation itself. British practice uses its own conventions, so a reader must know which country's scheme they are looking at before reading a colour.
Assigns one colour to each class of buried service so that a marked surface says what lies beneath it without any text: power, gas, communications, water, drainage, reclaimed water, survey and proposed excavation each have their own.
Contexts: Technical drawing, Public information
Is national rather than universal. The colours differ between countries, so reading a British marking against a North American key — or the reverse — can put a machine into a live cable while its operator believes they are clear of it.
United Kingdom and North America · Contexts: Technical drawing, Public information
Marks a position that is approximate by design. A locate marks where a service was detected from the surface, with a tolerance either side; the marks are an instruction to dig carefully in a zone rather than a guarantee of a precise line.
Contexts: Technical drawing, Public information
Sprayed lines, arrows and short letter groups applied directly to a road or pavement surface in a single strong colour.
The colour gives the class and the lettering gives the detail.