Temporal and Spatial Information Integration for Construction Safety Planning: Fid-Bau Portal

Temporal and Spatial Information Integration for Construction Safety Planning

Choe, Sooyoung / Leite, Fernanda

Since the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was established, which places the responsibility of construction safety on the employer, various injury prevention strategies have been developed and resulted in a significant improvement of safety management in the construction industry. However, during the last decade, construction safety improvement has decelerated and, due to the dynamic nature of construction jobsites, most safety management activities have focused on safety monitoring during the construction phase. Traditional safety planning approaches rely mostly on static information, tacit knowledge, regulations, company safety policies, and 2D drawings. As a result, site-specific dynamic information, temporal (e.g. when and who will be exposed to potential hazards) and spatial (e.g. location of dangerous zones) information are currently not specifically addressed. This paper presents a formalized 4-dimensional (4D) construction safety planning process that addresses site-specific temporal and spatial safety information. The safety data, which includes general safety knowledge, site-specific temporal and spatial information, will be integrated from a project schedule and a 3D model, respectively. The proposed safety planning approach is expected to provide safety personnel with a site-specific proactive safety planning tool that can be used to better manage jobsite safety. In addition, visual safety materials can also aid in training workers on safety and, consequently, being able to identify site-specific hazards and respond to them more effectively.