Design and Development of SAVES: A Construction Safety Training Augmented Virtuality Environment for Hazard Recognition and Severity Identification

PurposeWorkers and construction professionals are generally not proficient in recognizing and managing safety hazards. Although valuable, traditional training experiences have not sufficiently addressed the issue of poor hazard recognition and management in construction. Since hazard recognition and management are cognitive skills that depend on attention, visual examination and decision-making, performance assessment and feedback in an environment that is realistic and representative of actual working conditions are important. The purpose of this paper is to propose a personalized safety training protocol that is delivered using robust, realistic and immersive environments.Design/methodology/approachTwo types of virtual environments were developed: (1) Stereo-panoramic environments using real construction scenes that were used to evaluate the performance of trainees accurately and (2) A virtual construction site, which was used to deliver various elements of instructional training. A training protocol was then designed that was aimed at improving the hazard recognition and management performance of trainees. It was delivered using the developed virtual environments. The effectiveness of the training protocol was experimentally tested with 53 participants using a before–after study.FindingsThe results present a 39% improvement in hazard recognition and a 44% improvement in hazard management performance.Originality/valueThis study combines the benefits of using a virtual environment for providing instructional training along with realistic environments (stereo-panoramic scenes) for performance assessment and feedback. The training protocol includes several new and innovative training elements that are designed to improve the hazard recognition and hazard management abilities of the trainees. Moreover, the effectiveness of training in improving hazard recognition and hazard management is measured using specific outcome variables.

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Using Field of View and Eye Tracking for Feedback Generation in an Augmented Virtuality Safety Training

Construction Research Congress 2020 ◽

10.1061/9780784482872.068 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Samed Bükrü ◽

Mario Wolf ◽

Olga Golovina ◽

Jochen Teizer

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Safety Training ◽

Field Of View ◽

Augmented Virtuality

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Planning, management and administration of HS contents with BIM and VR in construction: an implementation protocol

Engineering Construction & Architectural Management ◽

10.1108/ecam-11-2019-0647 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Vito Getuli ◽

Pietro Capone ◽

Alessandro Bruttini

Keyword(s):

Management Practices ◽

Construction Project ◽

Building Design ◽

Construction Safety ◽

Safety Training ◽

Information Modeling ◽

Construction Site ◽

Content Type ◽

Vr Training ◽

Training Protocol

PurposeBuilding construction is considered a complex, dynamic and highly hazardous process, which embraces many factors that are potentially dangerous to workers. Many studies proved that the improvement of preventive and proactive measures – dynamically included in the building design, planning and construction – could reduce site accidents as well as increase the site productivity. In this context, process management models and information visualization techniques such as building information modeling (BIM) and virtual reality (VR) seem to be devoted to strongly contribute to the advancement of the current safety management practices. For these reasons, the presented contribution is based on the assumption that a more nuanced approach for construction worker's safety training is warranted and the authors propose a safety training protocol based on BIM-enabled VR activity simulations.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology comprised a safety training protocol based on BIM-enabled VR activity simulations. The protocol addresses three methodological issues: (1) Planning in terms of training typologies and related health and safety contents to be implemented in the VR construction site scenarios; (2) Management regarding the solution to integrate BIM and game technologies to deliver VR training experiences; (3) Administration in terms of definition of standardized rules to define a safety training schedule in a given construction project.FindingsThis work contributes to provide a standardized protocol for a viable integration of BIM and VR technologies for construction safety training in real projects.Practical implicationsThe VR training protocol was applied to a construction project based in Italy that served as case study for the development of the training sessions' contents and their implementation. This case demonstrated the feasibility of the protocol's implementation and pointed out the drawbacks and limitations on which further efforts need to be spent in order to take the proposed protocol from a prototypical stage to a maturity for its larger-scale adoption from the practitioners involved in construction safety training.Originality/valueThe research gives a contribution to reduce the currently existing knowledge gap regarding how BIM and VR can be simultaneously integrated in real projects for construction safety training by using standardized rules to be extensively reproduced in different construction projects. It uses a customized toolkit with a mobile smartphone solution to administer Safety Training Scenarios which increases its portability in construction site compared to PC-based VR solutions.

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Investigation of interaction among factors underlying construction hazard identification

Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering ◽

10.1139/cjce-2020-0170 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Qingwen Zhang ◽

Dan Zhang ◽

Pin-chao Liao ◽

Yinan Hu

Keyword(s):

Critical Role ◽

Safety Training ◽

Risk Tolerance ◽

Hazard Identification ◽

Identification Performance ◽

Recognition Process ◽

Anova Model ◽

Visual Clutter ◽

Main Effects ◽

Hazard Recognition

Although previous studies explored the effect of relationships between some factors on hazard identification performance, there is still a need to better understand the interactive mechanisms among factors in the hazard recognition process. This study explored the interactions among factors in the search and decision phases on hazard identification performance. A safety inspection experiment was conducted in a civil engineering laboratory, during which the eye movements of the participants were recorded. The experimental data were entered into a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) model to examine the factors’ interactions. The results revealed that experience and risk tolerance interactively affect hazard identification performance, and visual clutter and time to first fixation respectively have main effects on hazard identification performance. The findings theoretically supplement knowledge about the interactive mechanisms of factors during the hazard recognition process, and will play a critical role in providing practical guidance for safety training.

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