Reducing accidents in large construction projects in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Construction industry is considered as one of the leading industries in Sri Lanka, which contributes a significant percentage to the economy. At the meantime, it causes wide range of impact on health and safety of worker. On the other hand, construction industry is well known as an accident-prone industry. Nowadays, large scale construction projects are commonly distributed throughout the world. Hence, it is highly important to ensure proper safety management in the building process with the rising complexity of the projects. Different types of accidents, contributing factors to the accidents, causes for the accidents and control measure to reduce the accidents were identified through a literature review and it was substantiated through a pilot survey among five safety experts. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey was carried out among the safety practitioner who are involving with construction safety, to assess the pre-identified causes, strategies and mostly occurred construction accidents. A quantitative research analysis was carried out to assess the factors which are assess through pilot survey. Specially, RII was used for data analysis to prioritize the factors and one sample t-test was carried out to identify the significant factors by using SPSS. Finally, the analysis results were used to develop the framework. Sixteen different types of accidents, thirty-four causes for the accidents and thirty-five control measure/ safety practices were identified in this study. Among them seventeen causes and nineteen control measures were finalized as critical factors and those factors were used to develop final framework in order to mitigate the accidents in large construction projects in Sri Lanka.