A review and assessment of technologies for addressing the risk of falling from height on construction sites

Falling from height (FFH) is blamed for causing significant injuries and deaths on construction sites. Previous research has outlined a broad range of technological advances facilitating the management of the FFH safety risk. However, the extant literature lacks a comprehensive assessment to investigate the contribution of various FFH technologies, as well as their implementation feasibility on construction sites, which provides rationale for this study. The study aims to assess recent safety technologies which can be used to control the risk of FFH on construction sites, especially in urban building construction projects. A scoping review was conducted to identify such technologies and provide insight into their application in the construction industry. As a result of searching Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases between 2010 and 2021, a total of 86 representative studies were selected and reviewed. Following this stage, an assessment of their feasibility was carried out based on a set of criteria from the literature. A total of 7 FFH technologies were identified, characterising the contri-bution of recent technologies to the prediction, prevention, and mitigation of FFH risks. These technologies include (1) Safety risk assessment and propagation, (2) real-time sensing and monitoring, (3) automated pre-vention through design, (4) ontology and knowledge modelling, (5) virtual reality for FFH training, (6) personal fall arrest systems, and (7) collective fall protection systems. This research contributes to an improved under-standing of the status of FFH technologies. The feasibility assessment provides insight into suitable technologies for construction projects of various sizes and features.

Automated summary

This study evaluates and assesses the recent safety technologies used to control the risk of falling from height on construction sites. Through a scoping review and literature assessment, seven different technologies for falling from height were identified, detailing their contributions to predicting, preventing, and mitigating the risks.