The Cost Burden of Safety Risk Incidents on Construction: A Probabilistic Quantification Method

Area of Science:

• Construction Management
• Occupational Safety and Health
• Risk Management

Background:

• The construction industry faces inherent safety risks due to its dynamic operational environment.
• Existing research often relies on post-incident analysis, lacking predictive capabilities for safety risk impacts.
• Effective modeling of safety risks is crucial for incident prevention and robust safety risk management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively measure the impact of safety risk incidents on construction project cost performance.
• To investigate the correlation between safety risk incidents and the age of injured workers.
• To provide decision-makers with a tool for proactive safety risk management and incident prevention.

Main Methods:

• Collection of Australian construction industry incident records from 2016 onwards.
• Application of discrete event simulation for quantitative impact analysis.
• Correlation analysis between safety incidents and worker age.

Main Results:

• Safety risk incidents have a quantifiable negative impact on construction project cost performance.
• A strong correlation exists between middle-aged workers and the severity of safety incidents affecting project costs.
• Ex-ante, non-deterministic analysis reveals significant insights into safety risk impacts.

Conclusions:

• The study advances safety management theory by providing a predictive model for safety risk impacts.
• Findings support the development of targeted safety interventions, particularly for the middle-aged workforce.
• The research contributes to achieving zero-harm workplace environments in the construction sector.