An Agent-based Decision Support Tool to Identify Near-Miss Incidents and Accessibility Issues in Accelerated Bridge Construction
The construction industry workforce carries a large share of the overall industry workforce and experiences very high levels of injury rates, unlike other industries. Based on recent statistics, construction industry experiences nearly one-fifth share of the overall workplace fatalities. Ensuring safety at active construction sites is a major concern all over the world. Construction safety is a complex concept that involves the integration of uncertainties and unknowns associated with construction activities. The construction industry requires expertise from diverse professionals who differ widely in hazard identification, risk perception, and situational awareness . The empirical literature offers extensive analyses of infrastructural, behavioral, and organizational modules on safety practices at construction sites. Many researchers have interpreted construction hazards in terms of site layout screening, construction stages, and activities. The recent paradigm for construction safety relies more on the cognitive models and the behavioral impacts of the construction stakeholders. However, comprehensive safety analyses for active construction sites call for the integration of stakeholder perception along with the site risk screening approach. Technological advancement has paved the way for predictive analysis of construction hazards. The array of research on modeling of near-miss events has progressed from theoretical analysis to visualization with the help of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) tool. Construction site characteristics vary widely depending on the size and settings. Nevertheless, the components of the site (i.e. workers, materials, equipment, etc.) have similarities in features. Therefore, the concept of site hazard modeling follows the grouping or zoning of the site layout constituents having relevant attributes. A recent study proposed a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model for improving construction site safety and productivity in real-time for static and dynamic site components. Another study used various scheduling intervals to develop cell-based site layout optimization. A cell-based simulation model has also been used to derive the congestion and productivity of an existing site layout using Agent-based Modeling (ABM). On the other hand, Shen and Marks have utilized equipment footprints to determine hazardous zone boundaries in a construction site. In recent years, accessibility in construction and/or transportation has also been gaining more and more attention from researchers, Transportation Research Board, National Academies, state DOTs, U.S. DOT, ASCE, and the private sector to eliminate adverse impacts experienced by underrepresented and marginalized groups including construction workers. The existing literature appears fragmented and does not provide a system-wide perspective to assess and measure accessibility in construction, both general and accelerated. Although ABC is expected to make construction more accessible and socially equitable, no such assessment technique is currently available. Thus, the proposed decision support tool will be first in the country in the ABC area, providing a system-wide understanding of construction accessibility. The proposed agent-based modeling (ABM) techniques support the inclusion of complex agent-agent interactions and behavior into the analysis of near miss incidents and accessibility issues associated with ABC projects. Since modeling the construction environment involves construction workers’ attributes, ABM has been preferred by a wide range of researchers to identify latent contributing variables of construction hazards. For example, it has been explored to determine the influence of safety behavior of workers in workplace productivity. ABM models have also been used to investigate a comparative analysis of the efficiency of different types of safety investments. On the other hand, some researchers have identified the impact of the worker-management relationship on the overall safety behavior of workers. While these studies provide insights on integrating human behavior into the modeling framework and reveal the potential of ABM, however, in many instances, the incorporation of construction site components (such as movement of workers, equipment, materials, among others), environmental (such as weather conditions), and other characteristics are missing, especially in the context of ABC.
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Active
- Funding: $97500
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Contract Numbers:
69A3551747121
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Sponsor Organizations:
Accelerated Bridge Construction University Transportation Center (ABC-UTC)
Florida International University
10555 W. Flagler Street
Miami, FL United States 33174Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590 -
Performing Organizations:
University of Oklahoma, Norman
School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science
202 West Boyd Street, Room 334
Norman, OK United States 73019 -
Principal Investigators:
Sadri, Arif
- Start Date: 20230601
- Expected Completion Date: 0
- Actual Completion Date: 0
- USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Accelerated bridge construction; Accessibility; Construction safety; Construction sites; Decision support systems; Occupational safety
- Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Construction; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01889313
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Accelerated Bridge Construction University Transportation Center (ABC-UTC)
- Contract Numbers: 69A3551747121
- Files: UTC, RIP
- Created Date: Jul 31 2023 12:14AM