Citation

Ji T, Wei HH, Chen J. J. Civil Eng. Manage. 2019; 25(2): 132-144.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press)

DOI

10.3846/jcem.2019.7642

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Co-worker safety support has been given prominence in manufacturing and transportation field for its positive effect on individual workers' safety; however, there is little evidence to show if such supporting role of co-workers is significant in improving project-level safety performance in construction workplace. This study adopts agent-based modeling (ABM) to understand the effectiveness of two distinct co-worker-safety-support actions on the safety performance of a construction project. Based on the risk theory, the ABM model simulates a construction site where worker agents reinforce steel bars with the likelihood of suffering crane-related incidents. The results indicate that both co-worker-support actions can significantly reduce the occurrence of nonfatal incidents but shows little influence in fatal incidents, and in reducing high-severity incidents, the action of warning peers to leave the hazardous area has the same effectiveness as reminding peers to wear Personal Protective Equipment. The present study provides a fresh insight into the safety-related role of co-workers: not only reveals how the local-level effects of co-workers' safety assistance emerge the system-level consequences, but demonstrates the effectiveness of specific peer-support actions on three levels of construction safety performance, and thereby extends our existing body of knowledge on co-worker safety support in the construction field.

Keyword : agent-based modeling, construction safety, construction management, co-worker support

Language: en

Keywords

agent-based modeling; co-worker support; construction management; construction safety