Golovina, O., Teizer, J., & Pradhananga, N.
Automation in Construction, 71 (1), 99-115.
Publication year: 2016

The construction industry measures safety performance through lagging indicators such as counting numbers of illnesses, injuries, and fatalities. Active leading indicators, for example capturing hazardous proximity situations between workers-on-foot and heavy construction equipment, provide an additional metric for construction site personnel safety performance without incurring accidents. This article presents a method for recording, identifying, and analyzing interactive hazardous near miss situations between workers-on-foot and heavy construction equipment. Spatiotemporal GPS data are analyzed to automatically measure a hazard index that is visualized in form of a heat map. The graphical representation of computationally identified individual values in up-to-date building information models allows automatically generated personalized safety performance reports. These are based on specific near miss locations, environmental conditions, and equipment types. The presented research is based on previous isolated research efforts in equipment blind spot measurement, real-time location tracking, and proximity alert technology. It contributes the definitions and experimental validation of new safety parameters – such as entry of worker-on-foot in equipment blind spot – to determine the root causes that lead to equipment- and visibility-related fatalities on construction sites. Analysis of these root causes is important in preventing accidents in the first place.