Safety performance evaluation of construction projects in Egypt

There is a critical need to increase worker safety on construction sites because the construction sector is one of the most vulnerable sectors in the world due to its dynamic, complex, and decentralized nature [27]. Researchers have been working harder for years to make it safer for people to conduct various jobs. These efforts have different forms include creating and enforcing a series of safety laws regulating different industries and the design and manufacture of safety equipment and protection systems. Research shows that the main causes of accidents affecting construction safety are related to the unique nature of this industry, human behavior, difficult work site conditions, and poor safety management, resulting in unsafe working methods, equipment, and procedures [1].

Construction projects are influenced by their size, duration, environment, uncertainty, complexity, deadlines, financial intensity, organizational structures, and other factors [17, 25, 35]. The dynamic, transient, and dispersed nature of construction sites necessitates frequent inspections [27]. However, in a market-driven culture, completing projects with the needed quality in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost is more important than safety [36]. Despite significant progress in recent decades, prevention tactics have failed to ensure safety performance, many workers continue to be injured, and safety precautions are not taken seriously [12, 22]. Mouleeswaran [34] found occupational safety in the construction industry in developing countries is very poor, due to lack of safety regulations and standards, data related to construction site safety, safety training, safety promotion, and documented safety regulations. The nature of the construction industry, site circumstances, human behavior, and site mismanagement are among the most prominent issues in the Egyptian construction industry that lead to unsafe work environment, according to El-Safty et al. [12]. Smith et al. [45] stated that performance indicators for construction sites are needed to evaluate the overall safety performance.

So, there is a need to measure and assess safety performance. Mostly, safety elements are of general nature and cannot be measured easily, such as safety regulation, safety policy, safety promotion, inspection of hazardous conditions, maintenance equipment, high risk times, individual efficiency, and management behavior. These are important public safety elements, but must be coordinated in a way that can be measured in order to use the implementation of safety elements as a potential predictor of safe work environment [9].

Traditionally, safety precautions are evaluated after an injury has occurred, which focuses on factors such as accident rates and compensation. The issue here is that the injury has already hit, and there is no power to prevent it. In recent years, there has been a shift away from safety measures that rely entirely on retrospective data or lagging indicators, such as accident rates (AR), as well as safety climate measures and site inspections, which are referred to as “leading indicators” [34]. In that regard, Umair et al. (2021) developed a safety management system that integrates all factors affecting safety into one framework as those factors are interrelated with each other.

Several methodologies and models for assessing occupational health and safety risks have been identified in the literature [14, 21, 31, 51]. Risk analysis and assessment methods are divided into three categories [31]: qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid (qualitative and semi-quantitative) methods. The qualitative techniques are built on the analytical estimating processes and the competence of safety managers. The quantitative methodologies, on the other hand, a risk is viewed as a quantity that can be measured and described by a mathematical relationship using data from actual incidents that have occurred on a worksite. While the hybrid techniques are complex, because of their ad hoc nature, thus limiting their widespread adoption. Among those techniques found in the literature is the use of the quantification of occupational hazards [6, 37]. Also, the research conducted by Baradan and Usmen [7] used the probability (frequency) and intensity of accidents to assess H&S. A risk assessment model (RAM) has been developed to assist safety professionals’ assessing workers understand of risks that exist in their work trades [16]. Based on historical data regarding the risk levels of various sorts of work, the RAM can offer a quantitative risk assessment. The work of Gürcanli and Müngen [18] proposed a method for assessment of the risks that workers are exposed to at construction sites using fuzzy rule-based safety analysis to deal with uncertainty and insufficient data. In another effort, Rozenfeld et al. [39] developed a method used to assess risks, “construction job safety analysis” (CJSA), which can predict fluctuating safety risk levels and estimate the probability that a risk event occur. In a recent attempt, Qi et al. [37] presented a quantitative analysis of construction safety performance in three regions in China. They used nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) for evaluating construction safety performance. This study was only limited for the period between the years 2003 and 2019 where the data were collected.

There are many ways of analyzing and evaluating occupational health and safety risks that have been studied in developed countries. None of these models have been made to suite developing countries such as Egypt. According to a study of the Egyptian construction sector [22], Egyptian contractors used less formal safety procedures, and the cost of accident insurance was set independently of the contractor’s safety record. Frequency and severity measures are the only metrics used to assess the safety performance of the construction industry as a whole (Egyptian Labor Law, 1981). Frequency measurement depends on the number of accidents. On the other hand, the severity measure depends on the number of workdays lost.

Most of the previously described techniques are applied retroactively to understand the reasons and decrease the number of accidents, but the outcomes for evaluating safety performance are constrained by shortcomings in accident reporting and in the investigation and analysis of accident causes [15]. Although using the outcomes of these indicators have some benefits, because they are reactive and come after the incident, their use does not improve safety results [3].

In summary, the above-discussed methods have significant drawbacks in terms of measuring safety performance in construction sites. Given these shortcomings, the purpose of this work is to develop an indicator to assess quantitatively the safety performance in construction sites. The factors that affect construction safety are first identified and then a mathematical model is developed to assess the safety performance using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The primary contribution of this study is the development of a safety performance assessment model that can be used by construction companies as a proactive tool to help improve their safety performance by reducing the fatalities and injuries on construction sites.

In this study, a serial method is used in the research design. The first step is to collect and analyze literature studies to gather factors that affect safety on construction sites. After that, a questionnaire survey was conducted to determine the most important factors among the collected factors from the literature that affect the safety performance of construction sites in Egypt. Interviews, mail, and email messages were used to conduct the questionnaire survey. To analyze the questionnaire, the relative importance index was first used to determine the importance of each factor.

An exploratory factor analysis was then performed on the collected responses to reduce the number of factors and analyze them well. Then, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to determine the weights of the most important factors in order to develop a model to assess safety performance. An index for evaluating the safety performance in construction sites is developed. Finally, the developed model is tested and validated.

The construction workplace safety is complex, with numerous factors influencing it. To identify the factors affecting safety performance in construction sites, an in-depth literature review was carried out. As such, 59 factors that affect safety performance in construction sites are compiled. Then, those collected factors were reviewed. with five experts from the construction industry whose experience exceeds 10 years in semi-structured interviews to add any factors that could be related to the nature of the construction industry in Egypt or to remove any factors that do not apply to the Egyptian environment. Also, factors that have the same meaning were combined into one factor. Finally, 47 factors were identified (Table 1) for further analysis. Then, these factors were examined by preparing a survey questionnaire in which various construction safety professionals (including owners, managers, engineers, supervisors, etc.) participated. The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify the most important factors that affect the safety performance of construction projects in Egypt.

For more explanation and discussion, the collected factors are grouped into 11 groups as presented below.

Motivation (Factors F1, F10, F11, and F12): Incentives towards the job for a worker in the construction industry include wages first [11, 18, 26, 32]. Also, work satisfaction can be enhanced by permanent support, financial reward and praise from the administration, which are among the incentives [32, 33]. Also, peer pressure is among the factors that affect safety performance of individuals and the group [33].

Competency (Factors F2, F13, F14, F15, and F16): The level of safety awareness is raised through training, which begins by guiding workers to become more familiar with the work they do [11, 20, 26]. This also gives experience in safety, represented by knowledge of safety issues, understanding, mastery, and implementing safety-related regulations [23, 32]. Also, learning through training increases the efficiency of workers and has a positive impact on their behavior in the field of safety [32, 33].

Safety investment (Factors F17, F18, and F19): To increase safety measures, a budget should be allocated for purchasing and maintaining safety equipment, covering the salaries of safety personnel, and other aspects of safety programs [26, 32, 33]. This increase in cost does not mean a loss, however risk reduction may lead to an investment increase [32].

Cost and productivity (Factors F20, F21, and F22): Often, project costs are reduced by reducing the safety budget. This solution leads to higher risk exposure. Also, accidents in construction sites increase as a result of rework that does not conform to quality [32].

Safety resources and equipment (Factors F3, F4, F6, F8, and F23): Safety resources must be provided to protect workers from potential hazards in construction sites [11, 23, 33]. It includes personal protective equipment and clothing, safety barriers and fences, safety posters, safety booklets, and any other facilities that help protect workers [29]. Not only this but also it provides the necessary protection when using work equipment [22, 32].

Work pressure (Factors F24, F25, F26, and F27): One of the factors significantly affecting the occurrence of accidents is the time delay [32, 33]. Under production pressure and increased working time leads to deterioration of safety conditions [32, 33].

Work condition (Factors F9, F28, and F29): Construction activities take place in a rapidly changing environment and under evolving site conditions. This change results in many factors that affect safety and exposure to hazard [11, 32]. To reduce this danger, the site must be planned and organized [11, 33].

Attitude and behavior (Factors F7, F30, F31, and F32): One of the main causes of construction accidents is the unsafe actions of workers [13, 32, 33, 49]. Therefore, all employees must cooperate and participate in creating a safe work environment, in addition to taking responsibility for improving safety performance [26, 29, 33].

Lessons learned from accidents (Factors F33, F34, F35, F36, and F37): In general, lessons learned from accidents help companies improve the effectiveness of safety procedures [32, 33]. Also, accident rates used in evaluating the level of safety [22, 32]. To reduce these rates, safety inspections of unsafe behavior of workers and working conditions are carried out.

Organization (Factors F5, F38, F39, F40, F41, and F42): Small construction companies have higher accident rate than large companies [23, 32]. This is because of their limited ability to carry out health and safety work, and there is insufficient awareness of safety. The accident rate is directly related to the number of subcontractors and the total number of workers [29, 32, 33].

Safety programs and management (Factors F43, F44, F45, F46, and F47): When senior management is clearly involved in safety, this increases safety performance, where the participation of management is a key element in safety programs, along with commitment of subcontractors, and workers participation [11, 22, 23]. Also, the mutual relations among participants affect project safety through communication, cooperation, risk management, and control and monitoring mechanisms [11, 20, 26].

The most important 11 factors obtained from the previous analysis will be used to measure safety performance in construction sites. To measure the safety performance, too steps are needed: (1) determining the relative weights of the factors as they are not equally weighted; and (2) measuring the availably of these factors in a given construction site.

A bridge construction project was studied to determine its safety performance. The bridge is located in Aswan city, south of Egypt with a length of 555.0 m and height 7.0 m. The project site was visited, and the safety performance assessment list was completed by the project manager. Table 13 shows the project manager’s assessment of safety factors, the weight of each factor as determined previously from the AHP analysis, and the final safety performance score.

Creating a safety performance index for Egyptian construction projects is the goal of this study in an effort to raise construction safety. Forty-seven factors affecting safety performance have been identified. A questionnaire survey was carried out in order to identify the most important factors influencing the safety of Egyptian construction projects. The relative importance index and the exploratory factor analysis were used to identify the most important factors affecting safety performance and resulted in identifying 11 factors. Among those factors are incentives, the provision of safety clothing and equipment, and the work environment. Then, the AHP method is used to determine the relative weights of the identified factors in order to develop a mathematical model to assess safety performance in construction sites. Based on the AHP analysis, organizational factors have higher weights than project related factors. Therefore, more attention should be paid to these factors. The sub-factor skill /quality of worker was found to be one of the most important factors affecting safety.

On many construction sites, management has little interest in organizing training sessions for employees, managers, or supervisors on safety policies and procedures with no or little periodic reviews of training requirements. Therefore, there is a need for strong awareness, which may be done in various ways including displaying safety posters and banners, instructing employees on how to use safety equipment and clothing, and holding meetings to discuss safety measures. The proposed model was then applied on a case study project to assess the safety performance level on a bridge construction site. The results revealed that the level of supervision and accountability for safety were low. As such, safety plans should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis to reflect changing site conditions, rather than relying on their validity at the start. Discussing the results of the case study with site personnel shows their satisfaction with the developed model and its ability to assess the safety performance in the construction site.