Crane accidents and safety regulation in the Dutch construction industry

Crane accidents and safety regulation in the Dutch construction industry

Paas, J.C.

Van Gelder, P.H.A.J.M. (mentor)
Swuste, P.H.J.J. (mentor)
Van der Voort, H.G. (mentor)
Van Dijk, F. (mentor)

Technology, Policy and Management

Safety Science

2014-03-10

The responsibility for safety in the Dutch construction industry is changing. The former Health and Safety act contains a lot of detailed requirements. However, the new law sets out generic safety targets instead of prescribing safety equipment and measures. Companies have more freedom to choose how the regulatory requirements are met. This encourages the development of a safety policy that is customized to the individual company or sector. In this framework, the private sector has taken over the responsibility to implement general principles and targets described in the Health and Safety Act. The inspectorates withdraw and act more as system regulators in the new situation. The question is whether the market is capable to bear the responsibility to safeguard public goods, such as occupational safety? This question is put to the crane sector which made also the shift from government regulation towards market or self-regulation. Information about accidents and policy instruments in the crane sector of the Dutch construction industry are used to gain insight how the crane sector deals with the responsibility. Accident reports of the Labour Inspectorate and several construction equipment services have been gathered. Besides the accident reports also literature and experts have been consulted. The accident information has been represented using bowtie models and classified by scenarios. Load instability counts for more than 70 % of the accidents. Crane instability does not occur frequently, although experts do see this event as the most dominant one. The technical improvements on cranes could explain the limited contribution of instability of crane, boom and hoisting mechanism to accidents. However, this relation is not analysed. Accidents caused by falling loads do occur frequently. Further research on this type of accidents is necessary. A lot of accident reports lack information about safety barriers and management influence and their relation with the accident causation. Reports should be improved by adding this information. The quality of the accident reports of the construction equipment services illustrates the limited use of accident information as input for the decision making processes in the crane sector. The knowledge about crane safety is mainly based on tacit knowledge and perception instead of accident scenarios. This knowledge can easily drain out of a company, as it is mainly located at one or a few employers. Moreover the tacit knowledge can be influenced by perception. The influence of perception can be observed at the results of the expert meetings. The use of accident scenarios can help the Dutch crane industry to improve their decision making processes concerning crane safety. Therefore crane accident should be well registered and analysed. The bowtie model can help to make the translation from accident to accident scenarios. If the accident scenarios are used adequately all necessary relevant safety information is available to adapt the input mechanisms. The huge fragmentation of the crane sector plays also a role. The construction industry is characterised by a large number of companies. Many contractors and subcontractors use cranes or hire them. The responsibility for safety issues is also widely scattered among these firms. As a consequence information about crane accidents is mostly registered at the company who is primarily responsible. At this moment culture is to shift away the responsibility in case of an accident. As a result the necessarily accident analyses is only performed by the party that has the legal obligation to do so. The spreading of accident information hampers the use of the results of the analyses in the development of adequate policy instruments. A central place where crane accidents could be reported and analyses are collected would be an enormous step forward. If accidents and accident analyses are gathered it become possible to analyse at large scale the actual state of crane safety in the construction sector. A collective analyse of accidents with use of a transparent methodology to analyse accidents, such as the bowtie model, will make it possible for the crane sector to control the issues concerning crane safety. These are necessary steps for the sector in order to be able to bear the responsibility about crane safety.

crane
accident
scenario
safety
regulation
construction

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c878aaa2-0b9a-45b8-a3f7-9b8069bb1ab0

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2014 Paas, J.C.