Distribution of responsibilities and applicability of risk assessments in construction safety

Abstract

Safety and Health enhancements are tendencies of today‟s construction industry. Accident mitigation measures and legislations are publishing by authorities, enhancing the public awareness. Safety management systems (SMS)are inserting to construction management schemes and it is mandatory in most countries (Singapore, Australia, etc.). Assessing activity based risk or Risk Assessments (RA) is one of the sub elements under SMS. RA is a systematically arranged set of action statements to explain the safest work procedure prior to actual site work. RA‟s are serving effectively in construction sites identifying and mitigating the inherent risks. However, effective practicing of RAs are challengeable due to human behaviour, irresponsibility, negligence or ignorance, result in accidents. Therefore, personal interpretations and appreciation of RAs are timely requirement. This study examined the detailed RAs of “work at height” activities in varying situations. Work at high elevations cause “Fall from height” accidents and it is the leading fatality type in most countries. A questionnaire was launched to investigate the construction professional‟s appreciation, consideration, and ability to implement action statements on work places in Singapore. The findings were extrapolated towards Srilankan industry to trace the way for better safety performance. The objectives of the current research is to (1) quantify risk associated with the current work practices and compare it with the performance-risk due to past accident statistics (2) establish responsibility weightings for the construction team (3) investigate applicability of existing work practices (4) prepare probabilistic data set for the future studies to mitigate accidents. Even though, highly regularised safety and health protocols are enforced in Singapore, construction team‟s ignorance on RA is 13% ~16%, and willingness to take overall site responsibility of supervisor, the key for many SMSs is significantly low as 8%, and further studies are proposing. Anticipated probabilistic accident severities (fatal, major, minor and near misses) due to ignoring these statements are high as 26% ~41%, which also alarms industry to count as additional risk.