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Understanding the effect of co-worker support on construction safety performance from the perspective of risk theory: an agent-based modeling approach

    Tingting Ji   Affiliation
    ; Hsi-Hsien Wei   Affiliation
    ; Jiayu Chen   Affiliation

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

How to Cite
Ji, T., Wei, H.-H., & Chen, J. (2019). Understanding the effect of co-worker support on construction safety performance from the perspective of risk theory: an agent-based modeling approach. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 25(2), 132-144. https://doi.org/10.3846/jcem.2019.7642
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Feb 13, 2019
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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