The physical progress of a construction project is monitored by an inspector responsible for verifying and backing up progress information, usually through site photography. Progress monitoring has improved, thanks to advances in image acquisition, computer vision, and the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). However, no comprehensive and simple methodology exists to guide practitioners and facilitate the use of these methods. This research provides recommendations for the periodic recording of the physical progress of a construction site through the manual operation of UAVs and the use of point clouds obtained under photogrammetric techniques. The programmed progress is then compared with the actual progress made in a 4D BIM environment. This methodology was applied in the construction of a reinforced concrete residential building. The results showed the methodology is effective for UAV operation in the work site and the use of the photogrammetric visual records for the monitoring of the physical progress and the communication of the work performed to the project stakeholders.

Due to the fact of activity, environment and work dynamics, the construction industry is characterised by high accident rates. Different initiatives have emerged to reduce these figures, which focus on using new methodologies and technologies for safety management. Therefore, it is essential to know the key factors and their influence on safety in construction projects (fSCPs) to focus efforts on these elements. Through a systematic literature review, based on PRISMA methodology, this article identifies, describes and categorises 100 factors that affect construction safety. It thus contributes by providing a comprehensive general framework, unifying previous studies focused on specific geographic areas or case studies with factors not considered or insufficiently disaggregated, along with an absence of classifications focused on understanding where and how factors affect the different dimensions of construction projects. The 100 factors identified are described and categorised according to the dimensions and aspects of the project in which these have an impact, along with identifying whether they are shaping or immediate factors or originating influences for the generation of accidents. These factors, their description and classification are a key contribution to improving the systematic creation of safety and generating training and awareness materials to fully develop a safety culture in organisations.

The construction site is a hazardous place. The dynamic, complex interaction between workers, machinery, and the environment leads to dangerous risks. In response to such risks, the goal is to fulfill the zero accidents philosophy, which requires the development of safety skills among workers and the provision of tools for risk prevention. In pursuit of that vision, this work studies collective protective equipment (CPE). Traditional methodologies propose visual inspections using checklists, the effectiveness of which depends on the quality of the inspection by the safety advisor (SA). This paper analyses the traditional process of safety inspections in building projects: the traditional methods, main pain points, and bottlenecks are identified, along with the key performance indicators (KPIs) needed to complete these processes correctly. Because of this, a methodology that digitises the CPE inspection process is proposed. Augmented reality (AR) is used as a 3D viewer with an intuitive interface for the SA, and, accordingly, functional requirements are detailed and different information layers and user interfaces for AR applications are proposed. In addition, the workflow and KPIs are shown. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal, a proof of concept is developed and evaluated. The relevance of this work lies in providing background for the use of AR in safety inspection processes on construction sites and in offering methodological recommendations for the development and evaluation of these applications.

The maintenance of port infrastructures presents difficulties due to their location: an aggressive environment or the variability of the waves can cause progressive deterioration. Maritime conditions make inspections difficult and, added to the lack of use of efficient tools for the management of assets, planning maintenance, important to ensure operability throughout the life cycle of port infrastructures, is generally not a priority. In view of these challenges, this research proposes a methodology for the creation of a port infrastructure asset management tool, generated based on the Design Science Research Method (DSRM), in line with Building Information Modeling (BIM) and digitization trends in the infrastructure sector. The proposal provides workflows and recommendations for the survey of port infrastructures from UAVs, the reconstruction of digital models by photogrammetry (due to scarce technical documentation), and the reconstruction of BIM models. Along with this, the bidirectional linking of traditional asset management spreadsheets with BIM models is proposed, by visual programming, allowing easy visualization of the status and maintenance requirements. This methodology was applied to a port infrastructure, where the methodology demonstrated the correct functionality of the asset management tool, which allows a constant up-dating of information regarding the structural state of the elements and the necessary maintenance activities.

Pavement maintenance seeks to provide optimal service conditions. Before maintenance, it is necessary to know the condition of the pavement by inspection, a crucial step in deciding on the repair to be carried out. In this sense, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) seem to be an economic substitute compared to the ground laser scanner for pavement inspection tasks. This research seeks to develop a method to measure potholes using 3D models generated with photographs acquired by a UAV and process them using a software based on the Structure from Motion-MultiView Stereo (SfM–MVS) technique. The contribution of this document is the proposal of recommendations for the acquisition of photographs for the realization of the models. To develop these recommendations, an experiment was carried out to evaluate the accuracy in the reconstruction of 3D models using images obtained from the variation and combination of flight planning parameters and data capture. Then, to validate these recommendations, a bumpy section of pavement was modeled using the SfM–MVS method. The results show that for heights of 10 and 15 m the use of this methodology is applicable for the measurement of the width and depth of potholes.