Road Safety Development and Economic Growth in China From 1979 to 2018

Road safety development is affected by both motorization rates and economic growth. This phenomenon is studied using the Kuznets curve model, which uses data such as the number of road fatalities, the population, the number of vehicles, and the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, all of which are verified by applying the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The results showed that there were strong links between road safety development and economic growth in China. As GDP per capita rose from 1979 to 2018, the number of vehicles per person increased and the number of fatalities per vehicle decreased, producing a relationship that followed an N-shaped curve. However, in 2002, the relationship between the road mortality rate and GDP per capita followed an inverted U-shaped curve; the point at which this happened in the Kuznets curve was the turning point for road safety performance in China. Thus, road mortality rates increased as GDP per capita increased, but declined once GDP per capita exceeded 17 187 CNY. The analysis that stems from the results of the Kuznets curve model is consistent with the performance evaluation derived from the DEA-based road safety model. The findings could provide an important reference for policymakers to improve road safety under harsh economic conditions

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS AND CASE INVESTIGATION OF FATAL FALL-FROM-HEIGHT ACCIDENTS IN THE CHINESE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

A fall-from-height accident is considered a major leading cause of construction fatalities. The analysis of accident characteristics could offer effective guidance to the construction industry to prevent falls from heights. By using accident statistical analysis and typical case investigation, this study indicates the basic pattern and reviews in detail the conditions of a fall-from-height incident in China. The result shows that more fatal fall-from-height accidents occur from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Accidents on weekdays are nearly as many as on weekends. The lowest incidence month is February. Accidents resulting in one death take most of the total. Furthermore, not fastening a safety belt is among the leading reasons workers die after falling from heights. Victims in fall-from-height accidents are mostly male workers. Fall heights are most often less than 15 meters. This study serves to alert construction safety policymakers to diagnose the current state of fall-from-height accidents and provides a targeted direction for improving the safety record of work at height

Evaluating the safety performance of China’s provincial construction industries from 2009 to 2017

Performance evaluation in construction safety is of great importance to further improve upon safety management processes. This paper develops a data envelopment analysis (DEA) based framework to evaluate the construction safety performance at the macro level. The core of the method is to compare the output-input ratio of construction safety. Using the building practitioner, construction machinery and equipment, and construction area as the inputs, and value added of construction and death toll as the outputs, safety performance score is computed for the China’s provincial construction industries from 2009 to 2017. The results show that the number of benchmark provinces every year is between five and seven. The gap between the best-performing and underperforming province was relatively small in 2012 and big in 2014. Beijing, Qinghai, Hainan, Fujian, Chongqing, and Tianjin can be utilized as role models for the provinces that need to improve their performance in construction safety. The eastern region has the highest score in construction safety performance, followed by the western and central region. This study provides an effective solution to solve performance issue in regional construction safety and improves the tradition performance evaluation system to a certain extent

An approach for traffic collision avoidance: measuring the similar evidence on the causal factors of collisions

The lessons learned from each Traffic Collision (TC) will help safety practitioners to avoid similar occurrences in the future. However, few studies and methods have focused specifically on the similar features among different collisions. Thus, the development of a measurement method for investigating the best evidence on the causal factors of TCs was warranted. In this study, a similarity analysis method based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Similarity (S) theory, the AHP-S method, was constructed. This method was designed to identify the similar elements and similar units of collision scenes according to the analysis criteria and sub-criteria and further to calculate the degree of similarity between recognized similar pairs among TCs. Six TC cases were randomly selected as examples, and the degrees of similarity between cases 1 to 5 and case 6 were calculated separately. The calculation results showed that out of the five collision cases (cases 1–5), case 1 provided the best evidence for analysing the causal factors of case 6. This study promotes the development of quantitative analysis methods for collision incidents and provides an effective evidence-based method for TC avoidance. First published online 17 March 202

The future of hazardous chemical safety in China : opportunities, problems, challenges and tasks

China is a major country producing and using hazardous chemicals. Unfortunately, the hazardous chemical industry is still one of the most high-risk industries in China. In recent years, especially after two devastating hazardous chemical accidents, namely "Qingdao 11.2 Crude Oil Leaking and Explosion Accident" and "Tianjin Port 8.12 Fire and Explosion Accident" which occurred in 2013 and 2015 respectively, China has attached great importance to hazardous chemical safety. The period between 2016 and 2017 is a crucial period for the future direction of hazardous chemical safety in China because China released a series of important government documents (such as 'Thirteenth Five-Year (2016-2020) Plan for Hazardous Chemical Safety' and 'Comprehensive Plan for Hazardous Chemical Safety Management (December 2016-November 2019)') to promote hazardous chemical safety in the future. What is the future development of China's hazardous chemical safety? To answer this question, this paper attempts to briefly analyze and introduce the opportunities, problems, challenges and tasks of the future of safety with hazardous chemical industrial activities in China, according to the current situation of hazardous chemical safety in China and using the latest government documents and studies. Obviously, this study can provide useful evidence and suggestions for the future of safety management in the hazardous chemical industry both within China and in other countries