Spatial and Temporal Exposure to Safety Hazards in Construction
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135, Issue 8
Abstract
Given the dynamic nature of construction sites, analysis of construction activities and their related hazards is inadequate for reliable risk assessment if it does not explicitly account for the likelihood of exposure of potential victims to hazardous situations. In traditional risk level calculations for manufacturing industries, the number of victims is factored with the likelihood of an accident and the potential severity, but the victims are simply assumed to be those typically present at the accident location. In construction, exposure cannot be accounted for at a generic metaproject level: it must be assessed at the level of the activities and the physical context in which they are performed. Conceptually, accidents are “loss-of-control events” to which victims are exposed; without exposure, no accident is assumed to occur. A set of algorithms has been developed to demonstrate estimation of the likelihood of exposure of construction workers to loss-of-control events. The algorithms have been implemented in a prototype software application designed to predict fluctuating risk levels in construction projects. The software implements the “construction hazard assessment with spatial and temporal exposure” model for managing safety in construction, which empowers planners at all levels to adjust construction plans to mitigate high levels of risk or to undertake appropriate proactive measures to ensure safety when high risk levels are unavoidable.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded in part by the Office of the Chief Inspector of Occupational Safety of the Israel Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment under Grant No. UNSPECIFIED2005902.
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© 2009 ASCE.
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Received: Nov 27, 2007
Accepted: Feb 13, 2009
Published online: Jul 15, 2009
Published in print: Aug 2009
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