Utility companies are moving away from hard copy maps and paper notes when it comes to directing their emergency response and maintenance operations, with digital mapping systems and smartphone apps marking the new way of doing that work.

FirstEnergy Corp., the parent company of regional electric providers Penn Power, West Penn Power, Met-Ed and Penelec, says its storm response crews now use programs on their smartphones that allow them to send photographs and information to dispatchers at the company, which direct cleanup and restoration crews.

A companion app gives repair workers precise location information and lists of the materials needed to make repairs.

The technology helps to streamline the companies’ power restoration efforts, said Linda Moss, FirstEnergy Corp’s president of operations for Pennsylvania. More than 425 employees have been trained on the technology so far.

Penn Power, which serves about 161,000 customers, and West Penn Power, which serves about 720,000 customers, are the region’s major providers of electricity.

At the Butler Area Sewer Authority, which serves nearly 15,000 customers in five townships and manages 230 miles of sewer system, that kind of technology hasn’t made its debut in the field yet, but the day is coming, according to executive director Tom Rockovich.

“Right now we’re still in the Dark Ages using hard copies,” Rockovich said. “We’re in the process of getting an idea of what the possibilities may be.”

The authority has spent years and tens of thousands of dollars on its own GIS mapping system. The next step is deciding how to connect field teams with that network. The authority is considering tablet computers for use in the field.

For natural gas provider People’s Natural Gas, the integration of technology into repair and maintenance operations is an ongoing process, said Joe Brado, the company’s director of IT applications.

Brado said the company uses computers to connect field employees to one network, and equips its vehicles with cellular modems to give response crews access to the company’s GIS system — a task that included more than 600 field workers and close to 1,000 people overall.

“All of our operations groups were effected by this in one way or another,” Brado said. “A lot of this is really safety and efficiency.”

The company also is developing software to better plan its field work and reduce drive times.

The utilities all face different challenges when it comes to service and maintenance operations.

For electric providers, response to storms — which take down power lines and utility poles and cut off power to hundreds or thousands of customers — is the main focus of the upgrades.

“These new tools should help our dispatchers prioritize hazards and direct the appropriate crews to the damaged locations where we can get the most customers restored to service in the shortest amount of time,” Moss said.

At BASA, engineering assistant Kerri Hay said the majority of call-outs the authority receives deal with line mapping requests from homeowners or contractors.

The authority’s GIS system has improved workers’ ability to handle those requests, she said, but they still use hard copy maps. By getting hardware like laptops or tables out into the field, responses to those requests would become more efficient, she said.

For gas providers like People’s, which is embarking on a long-term plan to replace about 3,000 miles of gas pipeline in 18 Pennsylvania counties, digital mapping systems and proprietary data collection software can help workers better respond to emergency situations.

Company spokesman Barry Kokovich said the majority of gas company call-outs occur in winter months. Those calls range from mapping requests from other utility providers to residential service calls.

In the summer, Kokovich said, the company deals with line breaks caused by construction. A recurrent problem that crops up regardless of the season is car accidents.

“It’s a rare week when somebody isn’t tearing out a gas meter,” he said.

People’s also has a large amount of inspection work that’s performed on a regular basis, said Kokovich.