The development of mobile app (i-Safe) for safety and risk assessment in civil & building construction site

Abstract

Occupational Safety and Health at work has long been an important concern in construction’s industry. As Hong Kong has adopted a self-regulatory approach on the requirement of the proprietors including contractors to develop, implement and maintain the Safety Management Systems in construction’s industry, the accident rate has been decreasing but number still remain in high level. Worse still, the fatality rate does not show the trend of decrease. Since the safety professionals are the key decision makers dealing with project safety and risk assessment in the civil & construction industry, their perceptions of safety risk would directly affect the reliability of risk assessment. In this study, the qualitative analysis on the safety professionals’ beliefs of risk assessment and their perceptions towards risk assessment will be explored. Additionally, the current paper-based site inspection is accompanied by ineffectiveness and inefficiency. Based on the above problems, the purpose of this research is to develop safety app which is based on the occurrence of various potential risks for different scope/trade of construction project so as to minimize the accident and fatality rate in the industry. In order to achieve the aim mentioned before, a mobile app “i-Safe” would be developed, and then the survey would be conducted so as to collect feedback about i-Safe. In this paper, the construction accident rates including injuries and fatalities, study of the site inspection and risk assessment elements in safety management system, the ineffectiveness of traditional site inspection and risk assessment and the current mobile apps in construction safety field are reviewed. Besides, the incorporation of site inspection and risk assessment elements in safety management system onto the Mobile Apps would be developed so that it can be used by Safety Officer or other safety professionals for building or civil construction site. The user manual of this Mobile App 'i-Safe' is attached to this paper for reader perusal. It is hoped that all the work done of this paper and i-Safe could be beneficial to, or having specific insights to the worldwide construction industry and of great value to improvements for future projects.