Comparative Safety Risk Analysis of Highway Construction Work Tasks

摘要

The construction industry is characterized by a relatively high injury and illness rate. Within the construction industry, the highway construction and maintenance sector is one of the most dangerous. Recent research has shown the importance of quantifying safety risks so that safety information can be objectively integrated into project design and construction planning. Despite its importance, only a few studies have attempted to and quantify safety risks for construction tasks. This paper describes the results of a Delphi study that aimed to quantify the relative unit safety risks for 25 highway construction tasks. Delphi experts have been selected based on rigorous requirements and various controls have been employed to decrease cognitive biases. The results indicate that "construction zone traffic control" and "install traffic control devices" are the highest risk highway construction tasks and "watering and dust palliatives" is the lowest risk task. Once obtained, the risk data were integrated with the safety schedule integration framework presented in the literature. This application of the data demonstrated the practical implications of the data and validated the risk integration framework. It is expected that the findings can be used by safety managers to improve job hazard analyses, prioritize resources, and increase the efficacy of existing schedule-based safety risk management tools.