Performing risk assessments in construction requires collecting and analyzing project data and historical safety accident data, which is challenging due to the inherent complexities and dynamic nature of construction projects. To address these challenges, building information modeling (BIM) has been leveraged as a centralized digital repository that integrates data and provides a holistic 3D view of a project. Previous studies have highlighted BIM’s significant functions for risk assessment, such as visualization, simulation, and clash detection. However, these studies often overlook the incorporation of temporal information, which is crucial for assessing risks accounting for the dynamic conditions of construction sites. This study develops a 4D BIM-based risk-assessment framework by integrating spatial and temporal data to respond to dynamic site changes. The framework leverages 4D BIM to combine 3D model data with time-, resource-, and logistics-related information, enhancing the tracking and evaluation of construction progress. The study involves investigating major construction accidents, classifying their risk factors, establishing risk-factor identification algorithms, and implementing the framework on a web-based platform for validation. This approach offers a comprehensive risk-identification strategy, applicable to multiple accident types, with intuitive visualization using BIM models, benefiting from managers’ experiential knowledge and enabling effective risk assessments and mitigation strategies. Consequently, potential safety risks at construction sites can be efficiently identified using interconnected spatial and temporal data while tracking changes in risk levels in real time and visualizing them on a web-based platform.
13 September 2024 in Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
Purpose: Computer vision (CV) offers a promising approach to transforming the conventional in-person inspection practices prevalent within the construction industry. However, the reliance on centralized systems in current CV-based inspections introduces a vulnerability to potential data manipulation. Unreliable inspection records make it challenging for safety managers to make timely decisions to ensure safety compliance. To address this issue, this paper proposes a blockchain (BC) and CV-based framework to enhance safety inspections at construction sites. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a BC-enhanced CV approach. By leveraging CV and BC, safety conditions are automatically identified from site images and can be reliably recorded as safety inspection data through the BC network. Additionally, by using this data, smart contracts coordinate inspection tasks, assign responsibilities and verify safety performance, managing the entire safety inspection process remotely. Findings: A case study confirms the framework’s applicability and efficacy in facilitating remote and reliable safety inspections. The proposed framework is envisaged to greatly improve current safety inspection practices and, in doing so, contribute to reduced accidents and injuries in the construction industry. Originality/value: This study provides novel and practical guidance for integrating CV and BC in construction safety inspection. It fulfills an identified need to study how to leverage CV-based inspection results for remotely managing the safety inspection process using BC. This work not only takes a significant step towards data-driven decision-making in the safety inspection process, but also paves the way for future studies aiming to develop tamper-proof data management systems for industrial inspections and audits.
Tracking worker identities across cameras is increasingly important for advanced construction site monitoring, such as safety and productivity monitoring. However, current computer vision-based tracking faces challenges in reliably associating worker identities due to frequent occlusions and extreme viewpoint shifts between aerial and ground cameras, resulting in fragmented trajectories and ID switches. This study proposes a Dual-Stage Graph-based Association framework that integrates worker detections across multiple views using complementary Re-identification models and camera-aware adaptive thresholding. The framework synergistically combines TransReID for viewpoint-invariant global features and BPBReID for occlusion-robust part-based features, producing more discriminative representations. Data association leverages a graph-based clustering approach to combine representation features, camera topology, and temporal cues for robust identity maintenance. The first stage enables cross-view clustering while preventing false matches, and the second stage ensures long-term identity stability through EMA-based gallery management. Experiments on two construction sites demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves an HOTA of 39.85% and an IDF1 of 63.58%, outperforming existing baselines while reducing ID switches by 35.0%. Results on the AG-ReID.v2 benchmark demonstrate strong generalization with 90.82% Rank-1 accuracy in aerial-to-CCTV matching. The approach highlights initial feasibility for cross-view multi-camera tracking in construction with potential for extension to more complex industrial environments.