Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Safety Science
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/safety

Personalized safety instruction system for construction site based on internet T

technology
Ning Tanga, Hao Hub, , Feng Xub, Fengfeng Zhua
⁎

a
Department of Civil Engineering, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, PR
China
b
Institute of Engineering Management, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, PR China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Safety instruction, as a critical part of safety management, plays an important role on construction sites. Unified
Construction safety safety training and irregular inspection are the main safety instructions methods. Considering the complex
Construction workers construction site and low management density, safety instructions received by workers are usually not timely
Personalized safety instruction and precise. To improve this situation, this paper established a real-time personalized safety instruction method
Management information system
which considers the different characteristics of workers and complex construction environment. A user-oriented
Real-time location
PSIM system is developed in this paper based on GPS and cloud computing. This system could facilitate the
collection of the main hazards, safety instructions to these hazards, and project information using questionnaire
investigation and paper document. The collected information is classified by 5W1H method and transferred to
particular workers according to their different characters, including locations, duties and working time. A case
study is presented, which highlight its method for recording data, processing data, and sending personalized
safety instruction, in a high-speed railway project. The results demonstrate that important construction in-
formation related to both safety and activity in field operations can be automatically processed and visualized in
real-time, thus offering benefits to reducing hazards, improving safety awareness of workers, and creating a safer
environment for workers effectively at a reasonable cost.

1. Introduction engineers, supervisors and or foremen. Effective safety instructions are

Despite improved technology and legislation over the past decades,
the casualty rate of the construction industry is still among the highest
in most countries. In China, the construction industry recorded more
than 42, 500 causalities due to serious safety accidents from 2001 to
2015 (Safety, 2016). Among the complex causes of safety accidents, a
lack of sufficient safety instruction is a nonnegligible factor. Construc-
tion sites are dangerous due to a large number of workers, materials,
and equipment dynamic and unforeseen circumstances (Kim and Park,
2013). To improve the safety of a construction site, safety managers
should give on-site construction workers safety instructions timely and
make optimal decisions accordingly. However, useful safety instruc-
tions are not always accessible to workers. Helpful safety instructions
rely on the cooperation of different sectors and relevant information of
a specific project, including a vast number of laws, regulations, com-
pany safety policies, 2D drawings and implicit experience (Gui et al.,
2017). In most cases, safety instructions are delivered by on-site
not possible if the supervisors or foremen are not qualified. Even these
site managers are restricted by the project managers to improve the
safety level, it is difficult for them to monitor and control the entire on-
site situation and give personalized, practical instructions to all workers
on account of the variety of construction work and large numbers of
construction workers. In short, the current safety management system
has limitations concerning personalization, timeliness, and effective-
ness.
Fortunately, safety instruction could be improved with the help of
modern technology. Many researchers have applied Internet technology
to the construction industry, including construction design, site plan-
ning, risk management, safety monitoring and safety training (Zou and
Lun, 2017). Sensors and visualization monitoring system (Skibniewski,
2014) and sensor-based location tracking systems such as the Global
Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS)
have been widely used in safety monitoring (Cheng and Teizer, 2013;
Wang et al., 2014; Kimmance et al., 1999; Yang et al., 2012). Safety risk

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: tangning1993@sjtu.edu.cn (N. Tang), hhu@sjtu.edu.cn (H. Hu), F.Xu@sjtu.edu.cn (F. Xu), zhufengfeng0402@163.com (F. Zhu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.03.001
Received 24 October 2018; Received in revised form 25 January 2019; Accepted 1 March 2019
0925-7535/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
N. Tang, et al.
information flow (Cheng et al., 2012; Zhou et al., 2015), safety
knowledge management (Gui et al., 2017) and real-time communica-
tion (Zou and Lun, 2017; Nuntasunti and Bernold, 2006; Rozenfeld
et al., 2010) have also been investigated by many researchers. How-
ever, few studies focus on personalized safety instruction on construc-
tion sites, which is vital to ensure the safety of workers in a complex
and dynamic construction environment. Traditional safety instructions
are unanimous to all workers and do not take into account the age,
experience and other personal characteristics of workers. To improve
the current situation, we developed a Personalized Safety Instruction
Management (PSIM) system. The PSIM provides personalized instruc-
tions considering the features of project, the project schedule, different
types of work, experience of workers, and physical condition of
workers. After analyzing the current safety management system, re-
searchers established the architecture and system function of the PSIM
and explained data collection, retrieval, and processing of the system in
detail. The system integrates several current IT technologies, including
cloud computing, GPS and intelligent mobile technology. The collected
safety data is stored and processed automatically in the cloud and could
be visualized on the application built-in the smartphone of workers in
real-time. The application of the PSIM system is a significant im-
provement upon the conventional method of safety management and
makes it possible for more efficient safety monitoring on site.
The rest of the paper is organized as below: Section 2 reviews the
current safety instruction management and technology used in the
construction industry. Section 3 develops the Personalized Safety In-
struction Management System. Section 4 shows the information re-
trieval, collection, and processing used in the PSIM system. In Section 5,
a case study and expert workshop are presented to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the system. Finally, discussion and prospects are given
in Section 6.
2. Literature review
In construction sites, frequent work rotations, changing environ-
ments and concurrent activities make it difficult for effective safety
management, resulting in high accident rates (Rozenfeld et al., 2010).
In construction safety management, researchers take many approaches
to improve the situation, among which analyzing construction in-
formation, importing location technology and giving safety instruction
are discussed below.
2.1. Construction safety knowledge management
Construction knowledge management is an integral part of the
construction industry. Specifically, safety information analysis plays a
significant role and receives attention from researchers all over the
world. Some researchers inductively analyzed case studies about the
holistic risk level of a project and got some general conclusions.
Tamošaitienė et al. (2013) employed multi-criteria decision-making
methods to consider macro, mezzo and micro levels of a construction
project and used TOPSIS-F method to evaluate the entire risk of the
project. Abdul-Rahman et al. (2013) used Fuzzy Synthetic Analysis
(FSA) to assess holistic risk based on incomplete data and vague en-
vironments. Cagno et al. (2001) have developed an algorithm to cal-
culate operational constraint and evaluate priority index to reduce
possible risk. Hallowell (2012) conducted 11 case studies of American
general conductors to investigate how safety knowledge management
strategies are employed, including acquisition, storage, and transfer.
Saurin et al. (2002) argued that managers should make hierarchical
levels of producing control to manage the onsite work and allow
workers to participate in safety management. Some researchers in-
tegrated safety management information with productive on-site pro-
ject work, which can be emulated by a similar construction. Ding et al.
(2016) combined BIM, ontology and semantic web technology for
construction risk knowledge in a BIM environment. Guo et al. (2013)
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Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169
adopt virtual prototyping (VP) technology to identify critical safety
accidents factors and explore management methods through modeling
and simulation. However, the conclusions of these studies are always
applied to general management instead of personalized management,
and many risks related to personalized factors are not resolved.
2.2. Safety information management on construction site
Safety information is essential for construction safety management
(El-Saboni et al., 2009). Traditionally, safety information between team
members relies on paper-based documents or face-to-face communica-
tion (Cheng and Teizer, 2013), which are often insufficient and in-
formal (Hammad, 2008). With the development of information tech-
nology, practitioners started to adopt new communication tools in
construction safety management and considered effective real-time site
information communication to be helpful in making wise decisions
(Cheng et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2018). Nuntasunti and Bernold (2006)
adopted wireless technology to deliver timely information within a
construction site. They proposed an integrated wireless site (IWS)
concept which combined integrated equipment, tools, specialty devices,
and construction personnel promises to provide real-time communica-
tion. Lee et al. (2009) and Kanan et al. (2018) use radio frequency,
directional antennas, and ultrasound waves for detecting, transmitting,
and reporting the risk of construction workers for managers. The safety
inspection is the most common and imperative practices to enhance
construction safety management. Lin et al. (2014) developed user-
centered information and communications iPad application for safety
inspectors, which created a personalized mobile reminding service and
helped improve daily practices and management. Although more and
more researchers have paid attention to the importance of safety in-
struction and have employed modern technology, there is no applica-
tion of modern technology in practice to give effective safety instruc-
tions to workers in real-time. This paper thus integrates information
analysis with on-site construction safety management and targets for
developing a dynamic personalized safety instruction system for con-
struction workers.
2.3. Personalized system of instruction
The personalized system of Instruction (PSI) has a long history and
develops fast. PSI was first used in education and develops to an in-
dependent study method in which students take primary responsibility
for their own learning (Bloom, 1956). Its main features were stressing
on the written word rather than lecture, unit mastery requirement,
student self-pacing, use of proctors and lectures and demonstration as
motivational devices, which gave a chance to distance education and
improved the educational effect greatly (Grant and Spencer, 2003).
With the development of Internet technology, the content delivery of
PSI became more and more comprehensive and PSI has shifted towards
personalized online learning with intelligent tutoring systems (ITS)
recently (Lin et al., 2014). PSI has been widely used in traffic mon-
itoring, social activities, intelligent medical assistant monitoring, and
other aspects to instruct users intelligently. Wan et al. (2014) applied
situational awareness technology to monitor road vehicles and pro-
vided intelligent parking services; Gretzel (2011) summarized the im-
pact of PSI on Tourism from the social science field. Sottilare et al.
(2017) took advantage of smart glasses and pressure sensors to support
adaptive instruction for military medical training in the wild. Postma-
Nilsenová et al. (2015) utilized automatic detection of facial move-
ments to detect whether elderly users understood verbal medical in-
structions and gave special help. Researchers have also done some work
to use PSI in safety management on construction site. Lin et al. (2014)
designed a user-centered information and communication technology
(ICT) tool to improve safety inspections. In these studies, PSI has been
proved to have its great advantages in precise management and com-
plex context, which is needed in modern construction safety
N. Tang, et al.
management. However, there are few researchers focusing on workers'
personalized safety instructions on construction site, which is important
to help the large number of construction workers to reduce safety risk.
2.4. Location technologies on construction site
Outdoor construction sites are set in dynamic environments, and
there has been a frequent interaction between construction resources
(workers, equipment, and materials) (Iqbal et al., 2015). To improve
the safety of on-site construction operations, managers need to record
accurate and reliable data of these interactions. (Kim et al., 2013).
Researchers have attempted to use different technologies such as Global
Positioning Systems (GPS), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID),
Ultra-wideband (UWB), monitoring cameras, computer vision and
machine learning technologies to get precise locations of workers. GPS
is the most widely-used technology for on-site location, and its accuracy
is within 20 m. Once sensors in types of equipment send signals to more
than four of the 24 communication satellites, the GPS could locate and
track the position of machines and workers. Compared with GPS, Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) and Ultra-wideband (UWB) are used in
small construction areas, and their accuracy is within 1 m. Wang et al.
(2017) used RFID to improve the efficiency of the construction supply
chain by providing item-level identification and real-time information.
Yang et al. (2016) and Park (2012) derived worker action recognition
from pre-segmented video clips and applied action detection in longer
videos to locate workers and assess their state of work. Jiang (2014)
used GPS in bridge axis lofting study, and Zhu et al. (2016) used GPS to
locate on-site workers and mobile equipment and predict their future
positions to prevent possible collisions. Li et al. (2013) combined Global
Positioning System (GPS) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to
monitor blind mobile tower cranes safety condition. The application of
location technology improves engineering quality and reduces safety
risks from the perspective of conflict between human and hazard
sources. However, the safety risks caused by the unsafe actions of
workers have not been well addressed. There are still few scholars who
utilized location technology into workers' personal safety management,
and gave personalized safety instructions based on their personal
characteristics and special environment.
3. Technical strategy
To provide individual onsite workers with a real-time personalized
warning and reminding information, the researchers should ensure the
system could get accurate locations from workers and get respond from
managers in real-time. This paper adopts a user-oriented technical
strategy to develop the PSIM system for the construction site. Its stages
of development include system requirements, system feasibility, system
implication, function analysis, system coding, and system testing and
result analysis, as shown in Fig. 1.
After analyzing the system requirements, the researchers adopted
Internet technology, cloud computing, GPS, and smartphones to create
the system. Then the system architecture and system function were
established. 5W1H (Who, When, Where, Why, What and How) method
is adapted to process the information, and the system is coded based on
the rules of “If-Then-Else”. To test the effectiveness of the PSIM system,
the authors conducted an on-site test and an expert workshop. The
architecture, system function analysis, and system implementation are
described in detail in the following section. The collection of safety
instructions will be introduced in Section 4.
3.1. Architecture for PSIM system
China Railway Lanzhou Group Company Limited (Hereafter called
“Company C”) is one of the best railway construction companies in
China and mainly engages in railway construction in Plateau and
mountainous areas. Project managers in Company C generally have
163
Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169
excellent safety management capabilities and crisis response cap-
abilities. According to the investigation with two senior systems pro-
grammers and a general contractor from Company C, the high cost of
installation and use is the fundamental reason why many applications
are difficult to be used in the construction site (Tang, 2017). To select
the appropriate architecture for the PSIM system, the following re-
quirements have been considered: (1) reliable information storage, (2)
fast computation capability and robust information processing cap-
ability, (3) real-time instruction transfer and visualization, (4) mini-
mized physical IT capital expenditures, (5) easiness of operation. After
comparing different location systems and network modes, we chose the
GPS location system and Software as a Service (Saas) mode of cloud
computing considering the cost and function. GPS location system is a
basic function of smart phones which are almost owned by every
worker in China. The position error of GPS iswithin 20 m and meets the
requirements of the PSIM. Using GPS positioning embedded in mobile
phones can reduce the hardware cost and training cost of PSIM system.
Saas offers software that is an interface for users to communicate with
the respective cloud to perform pre-programmed tasks. This service has
a big advantage in flexibility and cost (Rosenberg and Mateos, 2011).
The users do not need to maintain the cloud by themselves and the
suppliers ensure the security and confidentiality of data, thus greatly
reducing the threshold and risk of enterprise informatization.
The user interface consists of two parts: a webpage and an appli-
cation built into the smartphone. The webpage is used to manage and
release safety instructions for managers, and the application is used to
receive information. The Android operating system is selected to de-
velop the application of PSIM because it is launched under the Open
Handset Alliance. Also, most construction workers use smartphones
that operate in the android system. Android system allows developers to
use a customized Structured Query Language (SQL) engine to develop
the PSIM mobile application, which does not require huge storage space
and could receive and update data from the server.
The primary system structure design and information flow of PSIM
are shown in Fig. 2. Firstly, administrators input safety instructions in
the system through webpages and construction workers send their
personal information including name, the types of work, gender, age,
work experience, history accident and location through smartphones.
The information is stored and processed to produce personalized safety
instructions in a cloud platform. Construction workers will then receive
customized safety instructions, which could be viewed on their smart-
phones. Secondly, when workers encounter unexpected emergencies,
they can also actively seek help from cloud platforms and adminis-
trators via the application as shown in the counter-clockwise circle.
When the cloud platform receives a worker's request for help, it will
report to the responsible leaders automatically and make quick in-
structions based on the security information stored on the cloud plat-
form.
3.2. Implementation of the PSIM system
As discussed in the architecture and function analysis above, the
process of matching collected safety instructions with individual
workers is completed in the cloud system. The personalized safety in-
structions shown on the smartphone application will remind workers of
the potential risks involved in different work types and appropriate
actions in different circumstances. In practice, users need to register the
application first, so that their roles could be identified by the system.
When they enter the construction zones, the application will capture
and record the location of workers in real time. After data processing,
the background information system will send corresponding safety in-
structions. The system will not start working until users reach their
working areas. Fig. 3 shows the workflow of the PSIM system.
When a worker carries a registered smartphone and enters the
construction site, the GPS-enabled application can locate and record the
worker's location information in real time. Subsequently, the
N. Tang, et al. Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169

Fig. 1. User-oriented design flow chart for PSIM system.

application transmits the worker's location and personal information to safety information is a one-to-one correspondence. The cloud platform
the cloud platform in real time. It is assumed that at a specific time, the combines this information with pre-stored project information and se-
relationship between workers and the workplace, work content and curity information in the system to generate unique security

Location
Personalized Safety instruction via system
OLAP Smartphone
Database
Location
safety alarm information

Personalized
Project data;
Safety alarm Safety alarm Safety
Safety
information information instruction
information
via system

Manually Safety Instruction

Administrator Workers
Safety alarm information
Fig. 2. Information flow of PSIM execution.

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N. Tang, et al.
Information of Worker X Construction Schedule
(Job and characters) (Process, task and assignment)
Safety Information Construction Daily
Database Task of Worker X
Personalized Construction Site
Safety Instruction of Worker X
Yes
Send Personalized Safety
Instruction to Worker X
Fig. 3. Workflow of PSIM system.
management information according to the 5W1H rule. Details of safety
information database and personalized safety instruction will be in-
troduced in Section 4.
The daily task of a worker is determined by the worker's expertise,
construction content, construction schedule, and working time.
According to the types of work and contruction drawings, every worker
has his specific workplace. Only after arriving at the workplace can
workers carry out the work of the day and the safety guidance in-
formation can play a role. When mobile application monitors the lo-
cation of workers arriving at the corresponding workplace, it triggers
cell phone application.
The location of workers by mobile phone application is a button that
triggers the transmission of safety instruction. If the workers arrive at
the position corresponding to the construction drawings, the cloud
platform sends the safety instruction to the workers through the mobile
application; if the worker does not reach the construction position, the
mobile phone will relocate the worker again until the information is
triggered at the designated location.
4. Information Retrieval, Collection, and Processing
4.1. Information retrieval
In this paper, domain ontology and the 5W1H method are used in
information retrieving. Domain ontology is a powerful tool to elucidate
a set of concepts and relations and their domains in knowledge study.
5W1H is a method commonly used to describe news stories regarding
six aspects: Who, When, Where, What, Why and How. Recently, this
method has also been utilized to give a comprehensive analysis of in-
formation management. The author presents the conceptual model of
the system using ontology theory (shown in Table 1).
4.2. Information collection and processing
Safety instructions must be generated before they are imported into
the system. The production of personalized safety instructions is both
an essential and challenging task because they vary in different sce-
narios and have to be matched with individual workers. On-site safety
information is always dynamic in nature, vague in language and mas-
sive in amount. The sources of the data are usually involved, including
records of past accidents, construction experience, and legal
Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169
Working Time
(Refers to a certain working day)
Construction The information is obtained
Drawings by system processing.
System information inputted
by workers.
The Location of
Worker X System information inputted
by managers.
Information obtained by
No PSIM system automatically.
Concordant
documents. Therefore, this study adopts a Brainstorm method, by
which face-to-face interviews and review sessions with partner com-
pany senior engineers and managers are conducted. All the questions
were semi-structured so that they were normative in form and allowed
interviewees to elaborate on their answers. There was consistency in
the responses, and the results could be used to generate standard safety
instructions. As useful supplements, paper safety documents such as
Pre-Start Meeting Record, Permit to Penetrate Request and Approval,
Job Safety Analysis and Safety Incident Reporting were referenced in
this study. To demonstrate the production of safety instruction, the
authors use a railway construction project as an example. Overall, the
output of safety instruction goes through three stages: identification of
safety risk, assessment of safety risk, and safety risk response.
4.2.1. Identification of safety risk
The first step is to identify safety accidents that may occur in con-
struction projects. The identification of safety risk consists of 4 steps:
firstly, breaking down construction work according to job types; sec-
ondly, allocating tasks to workers responsible to different types of work;
thirdly, figuring out weak links in risk management and sources of risk
involved in each job type; lastly, predicting risky events and their
consequences. Making detailed schedules is indispensable work of
project safety management, and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a
common method for detailed schedules. When making detailed sche-
dules, experienced experts figured out weak links in risk management
and sources of risk, and predicted risky events and their consequences.
It is worth to note that effective safety instruction is closely related to
workers' traits and weather conditions. For example, more attention
should be given to inexperienced or aged workers and those who work
in severe weather conditions. For example, rainwater reduces the fric-
tion of railings, and workers are prone to fall.
Semi-stuctured interviews were conducted. The interview questions
were divided into three sets: “What are the risky events that may
happen in the project,“ “What are the triggering sources that affect the
occurrence of these events (safety risk source)” and “What are the
consequences of these events.” To illustrate, falling from high elevation
and same level are common risky events. A possible cause is a failure of
guardrail. Human injuries and asset damage may occur as con-
sequences.
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N. Tang, et al. Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169

Table 1
Concept Set of PSIM System.
Layer of 5W1H Concept Description

Who Managers Personnel who are in charge of general projects or construction teams. The system records their types of work,
expertise, experiences, ages and past accidents.
Construction workers People who do physical work in construction sites. The system records their types of work, expertise,
experiences, ages and historical accidents.

When Master schedule The general plan for the whole project such as task, staffing, inventory, technology, etc. A master schedule is a
project work breakdown according to the construction period. Construction work should comply with
construction schedule and construction schedule updates according to on-site construction work.
Detailed schedule The detailed plan for the project be constructed in each period and is usually produced on a monthly basis.

Where Construction drawings A type of technical picture, which is used to present construction information and the relative position between
construction items. Due to the one-to-one relationship between construction drawings and the construction
projects, the system can segment working areas by construction drawings.
Map Visual guidance is used to present an actual geographical area. In this paper, the authors use Google map for
study.
GPS location GPS is an abbreviation for Global Positioning System, a radio navigation system that provides users with
accurate longitude, latitude, and elevation of three-dimensional position information for free. The system uses
GPS to acquire exact locations of workers and then annotates the info on the map. The GPS records both the
location of the project and the PSIM system users (construction site workers).

What Feasibility Report A feasibility study is an assessment of the practicality of a proposed project or system.
Construction Content General description for the project such as general design, construction function, construction principle, etc.
Safety Manuals A set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to ensure the safety of workers.
Technical standards Established norms or requirements of the construction building, including uniform engineering or technical
criteria, methods, processes, and practices.
Construction experience The experience summary of project officers and senior workers.

Why Production of safety instruction The method to produce safety instruction, including three stages: identification, assessment, and response.

How Processing and transferring of personalized The methods of processing and transferring of customized safety instruction, such as locations, working time,
safety instruction work types and the names of workers.

4.2.2. Assessment of safety risk
Qualitative risk assessment is the second stage of safety instruction
production. After determined safety risk events, senior engineers and
managers used a 1–5 Likert scale to assess the risk level. Affected region
and magnitude of loss are two main factors. These safety risk events are
divided into four levels in OSHAS18001 British Standards Institution
(BSI), 2007. According to OSHAS18001, Risk = Probability × Severity.
It uses a “5 × 5“ assessment method to identify and assess hazards into
4 ranks. When risk score [15, 25] the risk is very high and managers
must take immediate measures. When risk score [8, 15) , the risk is
urgent, and the ASAP after immediate. When risk score [5, 8) man-
agers should make plans to resolve this risk. When risk score [1, 5) the
risk is low and managers could take it for consideration. The risk rating
results serve as indicators of the frequency of safety instructions sent to
workers and the allocation of protective measures. When there are too
many construction zones in operation, on-site managers could use the
risk scale to determine which zone should be given the most attention.
For example, as mentioned above, the instability of guardrail may lead
to falling from high elevation or same level. Especially in high-rise
building construction, it will cause serious safety accidents. After the
identification of safety risk in Section 4.2.1, the experts assess the risk
of instability of guardrail and mark the score of probability is 4, the
score of severity is 3, and the risk score is thus 12. When risk score is 12,
the risk rank of instability of guardrail is 2, which means the risk is
urgent, and managers should take measures immediately. In fact, Hd
cameras are usually installed in these areas to detect possible incidents.
4.2.3. Safety risk response
Safety risk response is the last stage of the production of safety in-
struction. In project management, there are practical response measures
for most dangerous incidents, but they usually remain to be implicit
knowledge of managers. Based on the analysis of risky events, scholars
organize seminars and brainstorming workshops, and the senior en-
gineers and managers involved can give a specific responses in different
situations to apply tacit knowledge in practice. The researchers classi-
fied and collated the safety management information, inputting
information into the system, and transmitting it to the workers through
the mobile phone application. Therefore, construction workers can re-
ceive personalized safety instructions before doing their daily work.
This method effectively reduces the probability of dangerous events.
Besides, according to historical safety events, the system can also assist
managers in predicting possible risk events and making decisions. For
the example mentioned above, the guardrail may be unstable in high-
rise building construction when rain. The PSIM system will remind
workers to strengthen the guardrail and managers to make sure every
worker wear the personal protective equipment.
5. Application of PSIM system
The PSIM was applied to an 8-kilometer railway construction from
May 5 to August 5, 2017 which was a part of a 13.8-km railway con-
struction project (Hereafter called “Project R”) lead by Company C
lasting for three years. There were about 120 workers involved in this
8-km railway construction during this period, and 70 workers of them
were randomly selected to test the PSIM. The total cost of project im-
plementation, including the cost of the base station, and the cost of
software development and operation and maintenance. Each base sta-
tion costs about $20 000, and 4 base stations are used; the development
cost of the software is $50 000 for 5 years; the cost of software opera-
tion and maintenance is $1000 per month. Workers own smart phones
mostly, and there is no investment for smartphones. The cost of PSIM
system accounted for less than 10% of the company's safety investment.
According to the construction schedule, the construction group
would build No.267 - No.369 piers, and have four main work items:
foundation, formworks, concrete works and maintenance. Each work
item involved different types of work; carpenters, crane drivers, signal
commanders, welders, and general workers should join hands to com-
plete formworks, for example. Three researchers, four senior con-
struction officers, and 70 construction workers participated in the field
test. The researchers introduced the mechanism of PSIM system and
collected feedback through interviews and the field experiment; the
four construction officers, a project manager, a field supervisor, and

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two senior on-site managers, were the main safety managers in Project
R; the 70 workers had different types of work in the project.
The education level of construction workers is always low and the
staff turnover is always high. To test the effect of the PSIM system, 70
workers from about 120 workers were elected to do the experiment
considering their education level and job stability. The 70 employees
were evenly distributed into experimental group and control group
according to various factors such as culture level, age, and types of
work. During the operation, four people of the control group and five
people of the experimental group left this construction site and finally
the research group took the performance of 30 people who did not quit
as the result. May 5 to August 5 was made as the experimental period.
These three months is a good time for construction work for its good
temperature, and the staff turnover is relatively low. The duty of
workers was constructing piers, which was important and demanding.
A formal safety management test was legally required on the con-
struction site, which was issued by the ministry of transportation. The
total score of the examination paper is 100 points, and the workers need
more than 60 points to pass the exam. The more knowledge you have,
the higher your score. The test was used by the group to reflect the
knowledge of workers.
The researchers collected the construction plan of the bridge
hoisting, the specific task, the location of the task, the types of work for
each task and the personal information of these workers from May 5th
to August 5th. The collected data was sorted through the 5W1H method
in the system for each worker's personal daily safety management in-
formation using the method mentioned in Section 4. Due to the minor
inaccuracy of the phone's GPS technology, the system has a 30-second
delay and an about-20-meter error in distance. PSIM will send in-
formation to workers when they are 100 -meter away from the work-
place to ensure that workers receive instruction before reaching their
workplace. This is in line with workers' habits and helps them make
better preparation. For example, steel fixers received the following in-
formation: fasten the hoisting objects when using elevators; be cau-
tioned not to fall off the guardrails; follow the rules given by signal
Fig. 4. Smartphone interface of PSIM APP.
167
Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169
officers. Fig. 4. shows an example of the safety instruction sent to the
fixer worker. The system was proved to function well according to
preliminary results. During the experiment, there was no other differ-
ence between the two groups except for the use of PSIM. The system
sent 3012 pieces of personalized safety instruction message, and the
workers received 2800 pieces successfully, with a success rate of 93%.
On May 5th and August 5th, 2017, the workers were tested on the
safety management test. The experimental group was identified as
group 1; the highest grade was 96, the lowest score was 73, the average
rating was 79 on 5th May; the highest points was 100, the lowest score
was 80, the average points was 84 on 5th August. The control group
was identified as group 2; the highest grade was 97, the lowest score
was 73, the average score was 78 on 5th May; the highest score was 95,
the lowest score was 77, the average rating was 82 on 5th August. The
test scores of construction workers in this experiments are shown in
Fig. 5. The scores of group 1 after experiment were better than before
experiment as shown in Fig. 5(a), and the scores of group 2 after ex-
periment were better than before experiment as shown in Fig. 5(b).
According to the test results and charts, both the experimental group
and the control group got a higher scores with smaller variances on 5th
August than on 5th May. The higher scores meant workers more com-
prehensive knowledge of the safety of the construction site after three
months of work. The test scores of Group 1 and Group 2 were almost
the same on 5th May as shown in Fig. 5(c), but the test scores of Group
1 were better than Group 2 on 5th August as shown in Fig. 5(d). It
proved that the use of the application was helpful for workers to cap-
ture more safety knowledge. The safety records of project R also in-
dicated the number of accidents in the experimental group was 15%
less than that in the control group.
After the field test, an expert workshop was held to evaluate the
performance of PSIM on December, 20, 2017. Six main safety admin-
istrative including two managers from the client (Company C), the
project manager and two senior engineers from the contractor company
and one consultant engineer and six workers from the experimental
group participated in the workshop. The participants were asked to
N. Tang, et al. Safety Science 116 (2019) 161–169

100 100
95 95
TEST SCORES

TEST SCORES
90 90
85 85
80 80
75 75
70 70
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324252627282930 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
WORKERS OF GROUP 1 WORKERS OF GROUP 2

Scores of Group 1 on 5th May Scores of Group 1 on 5th August Scores of Group 2 on 5th May Scores of Group 2 on 5th August

(a) (b)
100 100

95 95

90 90
TEST SCORES

TEST SCORES
85 85

80 80

75 75

70 70
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324252627282930 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920212223 24252627282930
WORKERS OF GROUP 1 AND GROUP 2 WORKERS OF GROUP 1 AND GROUP 2

Scores of Group 1 on 5th May Scores of Group 2 on 5th May Scores of Group 1 on 5th August Scores of Group 2 on 5th August

(c) (d)
Fig. 5. The test scores of construction workers for safety information test.

Table 2
Survey results for PSIM system evaluation.
Criteria Avg. agreement level

1. The system is compatible with your company’s business value and need. 5.00
2. The system is a necessary supplement for existing safety instruction system. 4.91
3. The system can reduce the safety accident risk for workers. 4.75
4. The system can work well with the existing safety instruction system. 5.00
5. The system is easy to understand and use. 5.00
6. The system can improve safety instruction efficiency. 4.83
7. The workers could get more precise safety instruction more frequently. 5.00
8. The system could assist managers to give exact safety instructions easily. 5.00
9. The system can help to deal with an emergency. 5.00
10. The system helps reduce the non-standard operation of the construction site. 5.00

evaluate the effect and effectiveness of the PSIM system from 10 dif-
ferent perspectives shown in Table 2. A 5-point Likert scale measured
the level of agreement with “1″ being “Strongly Disagree”, and “ 5
being “Strongly Agree”. The overall evaluation of the system was quite
positive as shown in Table 2 (Tang, 2017) and the lowest score (Item 3)
was 4.75. We believed the main reason was that the project team felt
the PSIM was innovative and very useful to them. But we realize lots of
efforts are still needed to improve the PSIM which will be discussed in
the last section.
Although PSIM still has some shortcomings, these qualitative feed-
back has proved the effectiveness of the system and has pointed out its
research prospect. According to the experts, the system could make sure
every worker get his personalized safety instruction before their work
started and this would effectively decrease accident rates. By increasing
the frequency of safety instruction delivers and the accuracy of the
information, the system enhanced workers’ safety, especially in emer-
gent situations. In the future, the system will be implemented entirely
in more projects managed by Company C to obtain quantitative mea-
surements of the system.
6. Concluding remarks
The PSIM system has been successfully operated on the Internet
platform, which integrates traditional safety management knowledge
with up-to-date information technologies including cloud computing,
GPS and intelligent mobile technology. Based on user-oriented princi-
ples, the architecture, the data, and information collection, retrieval,
and processing for the system are determined. Employing the 5W1H
method, the authors introduce the capturing process of the safety in-
struction knowledge base. The collected safety data is stored and pro-
cessed automatically in the cloud and could be visualized on the ap-
plication built-in the smartphone to function as real-time reminding
and warning for workers in their daily job. The on-site test and expert
workshop show PSIM is an advanced and effective system for safety
instruction in the construction industry. The application of the PSIM
system has changed the conventional method of safety management
and make it possible of a more efficient safety monitoring and regula-
tion on site.
Undoubtedly, the construction industry and Internet technology in
the future will be more interconnected, and some pioneers have started
their work in this regard. Though the conceptual philosophy of PSIM

168
N. Tang, et al.
system proposed in this paper is just a sign of this impact, yet its im-
plication in managerial systems based on Internet platform cannot be
underestimated. Personalized management is an important direction for
safety management. The PSIM system takes into account the stable
physical condition, experience, type of work, work area, task, age and
of workers, and provides personalized safety instructions accordingly.
However, the PSIM cannot well manage the dynamic physical condi-
tions, such as fatigue, heart rate, blood pressure, and environmental
safety conditions like the rushing cranes in real-time. Dynamic en-
vironment and stable condition interact with each other and decide the
personalized safety state of workers together. The authors will make
more effort to innovate the PSIM system in the aspects of real-time
management in the personality information and lay a foundation for the
future introduction of artificial intelligence into the construction in-
dustry.
Acknowledgements
The authors express their sincere gratitude to China Railway
Lanzhou Group Company Limited (Grant ID: 17H2H22000081) for as-
sisting in data collection and conducting on-site interviews and test.
They also thank the project engineers for valuable information and
useful data. Besides, the authors would like to thank Shaopei Lin,
Qinruo Hu and Yue Xue for their help and support.
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