Accident Investigation Research Articles

Applications of Text Mining in the Transportation Infrastructure Sector: A Review

Transportation infrastructure is vital to the well-functioning of economic activities in a region. Due to the digitalization of data storage, ease of access to large databases, and advancement of social media, large volumes of text data that relate to different aspects of transportation infrastructure are generated. Text mining techniques can explore any large amount of textual data within a limited time and with limited resource allocation for generating easy-to-understand knowledge. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of the various applications of text mining techniques in transportation infrastructure research. The scope of this research ranges across all forms of transportation infrastructure-related problems or issues that were investigated by different text mining techniques. These transportation infrastructure-related problems or issues may involve issues such as crashes or accidents investigation, driving behavior analysis, and construction activities. A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA)-based structured methodology was used to identify relevant studies that implemented different text mining techniques across different transportation infrastructure-related problems or issues. A total of 59 studies from both the U.S. and other parts of the world (e.g., China, and Bangladesh) were ultimately selected for review after a rigorous quality check. The results show that apart from simple text mining techniques for data pre-processing, the majority of the studies used topic modeling techniques for a detailed evaluation of the text data. Other techniques such as classification algorithms were also later used to predict and/or project future scenarios/states based on the identified topics. The findings from this study will hopefully provide researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of the potential of text mining techniques under different circumstances to solve different types of transportation infrastructure-related problems. They will also provide a blueprint to better understand the ever-evolving area of transportation engineering and infrastructure-focused studies.

Spatial-temporal analysis method of ship traffic accidents involving data field: An evidence from risk evolution of ship collision

Collision accident is the commonest type of ship traffic accident. Analysis of the spatial-temporal characteristics during the ship encounter process is helpful to the discovery of the accident evolution mechanism. The spatial-temporal analysis method was developed for collision accidents from maritime accident investigation reports to reveal the evolution characteristics of potential collision risk (PCR) during the two ships' encounters. First, a four-dimensional interpolation algorithm under the Radar window was proposed by analyzing the uncertainty of risk collision from different ship parameters. Second, a data field cognitive model with Gaussian mixture clustering on PCR was constructed according to the Radar information of the ship encounter process. Last but not least, combining different collision avoidance scenarios under the ship domain, the spatial-temporal characteristics of PCR were discussed to reveal the evolution mechanism. Empirical evidence shows that the laws of time are equivalent to space in the four stages of the ship encounter process. Ship's parameters make a difference in risk perception under the Radar window. Different encounter situations have significant impacts on Radar-based collision avoidance.

Loss of control in flight accident case study: icing-related tailplane stall

AbstractIn January 2017, a business jet flew in Norway on a short repositioning flight with two pilots onboard, no passengers or cargo. Initially, the take-off proceeded as normal but as the landing gear was retracted both pilots observed that the airspeed was rapidly approaching the flap limiting speed of 200kts. When the flaps were fully retracted at a height of approximately 2,100ft above ground level, the crew experienced a violent nose-down pitch motion. Control was regained at a height of approximately 170ft above ground level and, following the accident, data from the flight data recorder showed that the aircraft experienced –2.62G during the pitch upset. A tailplane stall due to icing was suspected; however, the flight data recorder, being limited to 36 parameters, was not able to confirm this. For expediency during the accident investigation process, a simplified, linear flight dynamics model was developed using Matlab/Simulink to assess static and dynamic stability for a range of tailplane efficiency factors to simulate the effects of tailplane icing.

Commercial Aircraft-Assisted Suicide Accident Investigations Re-Visited—Agreeing to Disagree?

Background: The number of aircraft-assisted suicides can only be considered a rough estimate because it is difficult and, at times, impossible to identify all cases of suicide. Methods: Four recent reports of accidents occurring in 1997 in Indonesia, 1999 in Massachusetts in the United States, 2013 in Namibia, and 2015 in France related to commercial aircraft-assisted suicides were analyzed. This analysis relied on data extracted from the accident reports that supported aircraft-assisted suicide from the: (a) cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR), (b) medical history, (c) psychosocial history, (d) toxicology, (e) autopsy, and (f) any methodology that utilized aviation medicine. There are some limitations in this study. Although all analyzed accident investigations followed ICAO Annex 13 guidelines, there is variability in their accident investigations and reporting. In addition, accident investigation reports represent accidents from 1997 to 2015, and during this time, there has been a change in the way accidents are reported. The nature of this analysis is explorative. The aim was to identify how the various aircraft accident investigators concluded that the accidents were due to suicidal acts. Results: In all four accident reports, FDR data were available. CVR data were also available, except for one accident where CVR data were only partially available. Comprehensive medical and psychosocial histories were available in only one of four of the accident reports. Conclusion: To prevent accidents involving commercial aircraft, it is necessary to identify the causes of these accidents to be able to provide meaningful safety recommendations. A detailed psychological autopsy of pilots can and likely will assist in investigations, as well as generate recommendations that will substantially contribute to mitigating accidents due to pilot suicide. Airborne image recording may be a useful tool to provide additional information about events leading up to a crash and thus assist in accident investigations.

A method for assisting the accident consequence prediction and cause investigation in petrochemical industries based on natural language processing technology

Risk analysis for production processes in the petrochemical industry is an important procedure for consequence prediction and investigation of accidents. The analyzer must grasp the correlations between the possible causes and consequences. From the potential cause and effect found in risk analysis reports, complete clarification should be obtained. Therefore, this study presents a method for assisting accident consequence prediction and investigation in the petrochemical industry based on risk analysis reports using natural language processing technology. First, a hazard and operability (HAZOP) historical data table is established by filling over 7200 HAZOP analysis data points. Both the causes and consequences in the table are classified into 20 categories each using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) models. The LDA clustering results are assigned classification for the cause and consequence topics to the cause and consequences of the HAZOP analysis data. Based on part-of-speech (POS) tagging, all the words in each cause and consequence record are divided into subject and action words. Next, the word combinations of subject and action words with a higher occurrence are considered the key phrases for describing and representing the corresponding cause and consequence topic classifications. The Apriori algorithm is used to determine the frequent item sets, acquire the association rules, and calculate the association degree to obtain the sort order; it can highlight general trends in relational cause and consequence topics. According to the results, the most likely cause of the consequence and the most likely consequence that the cause may lead to are identified. Finally, a visual interface is developed to present the data for the consequence prediction and cause investigation of accidents. The results reveal that the quantity and quality of historic data are important factors that may influence the results. This method can contribute to predicting the accident evolution trend of an abnormal situation, taking preventive measures in advance, improving the accuracy of early warning, and supporting emergency response measures.

Subsea pipelines incidents prevention: A case study in Brazil

There are more than 4000 subsea pipelines in Brazil. These pipes include umbilicals, drilling risers, flexible risers, rigid risers, hybrid risers, flowlines, and export pipelines. Despite all standards, regulations, guides, and risk management tools designed to avoid events, subsea pipeline incidents still occur, revealing possible failures in companies' risk control. Identifying similarities between different subsea pipeline failure events is crucial to improving the design, risk management practices, and regulation requirements, besides promoting accident prevention. This paper proposes applying the life cycle and management practices combined to analyze subsea pipeline incidents from the RDI (Detailed Incident Report) and investigations reported to ANP (Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Gas, and Biofuels), the Brazilian safety regulatory agency. Furthermore, subsea pipeline incidents data were analyzed: correlated circumstances, consequences, and causes. The results show that most riser and flowlines causal factors are related to equipment failures, and recurrent root causes are design errors and integrity control. Based on the proposed approach, it was possible to identify gaps in most riser and flowlines accident investigations since there are few causal factors, root causes, and the absence of riser and flowlines failure mode and mechanisms. Therefore, the development of accident recommendations can be compromised. Thus, this paper proposes improvements to current Brazilian regulations to clarify the minimal subsea pipeline accident investigation requirements.

Critical Factors Affecting Fire Safety in High-Rise Buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah, UAE

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors affecting fire accidents in high-rise residential buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah in order to find solutions that contribute to reducing injuries and deaths from fire accidents. A large urban expansion of the Emirate of Sharjah has taken place in the form of high-rise buildings, and the Emirate is now third in the UAE in terms of the number of high-rise buildings and is home to 19% of the population. As a consequence, an increase in the rate of fire accidents has also been observed. As such, there is a need to conduct research on enhancing fire safety in high-rise buildings by conducting a literature review, in which nineteen factors affecting fire globally were identified. Because the fire characteristic is unique in every country, to identify the nature of fire in the Emirate of Sharjah, we consulted sixteen subject matter experts in the field of fire in the Emirate of Sharjah to identify the factors applicable to the Emirate. We used the failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis methodology to accomplish this goal. The outcome of the consultations resulted in the three main factor categories, which are management factors, human factors, and technical factors, and the critical factors affecting the high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah were identified, which are: fire regulations, fire enforcement regulations, accident investigation, rescue speed, human behavior, lack of proper maintenance, fire training, building design, fire knowledge, combustible materials, fire culture of society, and urbanization. Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) tools implemented to measure the effect level of the sub-critical fire factors, 45 effects were identified, and the most common effects were: the building is fully covered by cladding, the effect of stopping activities in HRBs that are non-compliant with fire regulations, the residents practice activities related to fire knowledge, fire regulations efficiency, the training of new employees by their employers, and the residents have fire-related knowledge.

Risk mapping in community pharmacies

Community pharmacists worldwide operate with the continual risk of errors (Quality Related Events—QREs) occurring in their dispensing processes. Contemporary analysis of community pharmacy QREs tends to concentrate on the outcomes of the error, such as the degree of patient harm, rather than on the risks associated with the triggering of a QRE. Drawing on risk identification and mapping techniques from the information security sector, we conducted a risk mapping exercise of QREs occurring in Canadian community pharmacies as identified in publicly available accident investigations. The findings from the present study identified relationships and patterns between various risk factors, types of errors, and patient outcomes. For example, the risk factors most associated with errors that result in patient fatality were the “sound-alike/look-alike” medication labeling and the dispensing checking and verification processes in the pharmacy. Study findings support the application of risk identification and mapping techniques to community pharmacy risk and QRE mitigation practices and regulations.

A content-aware corpus-based model for analysis of marine accidents

In the past decades, marine accidents brought the serious loss of life and property and environmental contamination. With the accumulation of marine accident data, especially accident investigation reports, compared with subjective reasoning based on expert experience, data-driven methods for analysis and accident prevention are more comprehensive and objective. This paper aims to develop a content-aware corpus-based model for the analysis of marine accidents to mine the accident semantic features. The general research framework is established to combine accident data, expert prior knowledge, and semi-automated natural language processing (NLP) technology. The NLP models are optimized, fused, and applied to the case study of ship collision accidents. The results show that the proposed model can accurately and quickly extract hazards, accident causes, and scenarios from the accident reports, and perform semantic analysis for the latent relationships between them to extend the accident causation theory. This study can provide a powerful and innovative analysis tool for marine accidents for maritime traffic safety management departments and relevant research institutions.

Hazard Identification and Safety Requirements Derivation from a Functional Safety Perspective for UAS Conceptual Design: Based on the UK AAIB's Accident Investigation Reports on Unmanned Aircraft Systems

With the 4th Industrial Revolution, the utilization of unmanned aircraft systems is increasing day by day in various fields. However, unmanned aircraft systems are vulnerable to functional errors due to their unique characteristics, such as remote control and automatic flight. In the event of an accident, the system operator and the general public may be injured, and the system manufacturer may be disadvantaged by the Product Liability Act. In addition, with the establishment of international standards related to risk management and functional safety, such as ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085, IEC 61508, and ARP4761, risk analysis and countermeasures have become essential when developing systems. It is time to ensure functional safety at the conceptual design phase to protect public safety and manufacturers' interests. This study reviews international standards to confirm the importance of identifying functional safety hazards and managing requirements. In addition, it also analyzes the accident investigation reports of the UK AAIB to identify hazards of unmanned aircraft systems and derive safety requirements.

Fatal industrial injuries in the Republic of Bashkortostan

Introduction. Every year, about 350 thousand people die in the workplace for reasons related to production all over the world. The significance of this problem dictates the need to analyze fatal occupational injuries in order to further develop a set of measures aimed at preventing it. The study aims to analyze fatal occupational injuries at enterprises of the Republic of Bashkortostan on the basis of personalized data as an information basis for the development and justification of priority areas for the prevention of accidents in the workplace. Materials and methods. For analyzing the indicators of general occupational injuries and fatal injuries, we used the results of the all-Russian monitoring of labor conditions and safety of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, Russian Federation, analytical materials of labor conditions and safety of the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Bashkortostan for the period 2017-2020. To assess the completeness of the accounting of occupational injuries in Russia and the Republic of Bashkortostan, the researchers used the ILO methodology "On assessing the reliability of statistics of accidents at work in countries with imperfect accounting". Based on the materials of 177 Acts on the investigation of fatal accidents (Form 4) provided by the State Labor Inspectorate in the Republic of Bashkortostan for the period 2017-2020, we have studied the circumstances and causes of the death of workers at work, their professional status and age-length characteristics. Results. The analysis of the dynamics of occupational injuries for 2017-2020 in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan showed a decrease in both total occupational injuries and fatal injuries, with a decrease in the frequency of worker deaths occurring at a faster pace. This provided an increase in the ratio of the total number of injuries to the number of fatal injuries, indicating an increase in the level of safety at enterprises and the quality of accounting for minor injuries. However, in 2020 the level of fatal industrial injuries in the Republic exceeded the same indicator in Russia by 25%. An in-depth analysis of fatal injuries based on accident investigation materials in the Republic of Bashkortostan for 2017-2020 showed that most often workers died in construction (0.77 per 1000 workers) and mining enterprises (0.75%) as a result of such types of accidents as traffic accidents, falling from a height, exposure to moving objects, flying rotating objects, parts, machines, etc. Specialists also observed a high level of fatal injuries in agriculture (0.58%), transport and storage enterprises (0.41%), water supply, sewerage (0.38%), etc. The main causes of fatal injuries were unsatisfactory organization of work (34.7%) and violation of traffic rules (29.2%). At the victim’s workplaces the researchers have identified a significant number of violations of labor protection requirements: the absence of special assessment of working conditions (SAWC), briefings and training on labor protection, violations of the work and rest regime, labor and industrial discipline, non-issuance of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the absence of mandatory preliminary and periodic medical examinations. Male workers were most often died (97.6%); in the profession of "driver"; at the age of 30-39 years. There is a very high proportion of victims with work experience of up to one year (44.6%). Almost 75% of the victims had less than 5 years of work experience. This indicates unsatisfactory training in occupational safety of newly hired workers, regardless of their age and previous experience at other enterprises. Conclusion. The in-depth analysis of fatal injuries at enterprises of the Republic of Bashkortostan showed the need to develop a set of targeted occupational safety measures aimed at reducing the level of occupational injuries, taking into account the most traumatic types of economic activity, the most frequent types of accidents and causes of accidents. In addition, special attention should be paid to the training of safe methods and techniques for performing the work of low-skilled workers, as well as the organization of checking the knowledge of traffic rules among drivers of vehicles.

An Overview of Traffic Accident Investigation Using Different Techniques

One of the most important aims of incident management is the clearance of the incident scene as fast as possible. The accident Investigation provides physical evidence at the accident site for the investigators. This physical evidence is much more reliable than the witness's statements and they are very crucial for the incident reconstruction. The cars accidents investigation is a dangerous activity, so it should be undertaken with suitable, accurate, and fast equipment. Many law enforcement agencies in the world have used different surveying techniques for accident investigations including the coordinate method, total station, photogrammetry, laser scanner, etc. Therefore, this research has been carried out in order to introduce the benefits of using surveying techniques in traffic accident investigations, and show their impacts on evidence documentation and scene clearance. This is done by focusing on the advantages and the disadvantages of each method based on the relevant works of literature and compares between them. Although comparison result shows that the traditional method(coordinate method) is simpler and cheaper than other methods, surveying techniques methods are safer, and faster in clearing the accident scene, fewer investigators are needed, the scale can be provided directly, high accuracy measurements can be obtained, and three dimensions models can be produced. So it's worth using the surveying equipment in cars accidents investigations.

PELAKSANAAN PEMERIKSAAN OLAH TEMPAT KEJADIAN PERKARA (TKP) DALAM PROSES PENYIDIKAN KECELAKAAN LALU LINTAS

The legal regulation governing the implementation of the scene of the incident in the investigation of traffic accidents is Article 35 paragraph 1 concerning Regulation of the Chief of Police of the Republic of Indonesia Number 15 of 2013 junto Law Number 22 of 2009 concerning Road Traffic and Transportation. The implementation of the implementation of traffic accident investigations is to record and prepare to visit the scene of a traffic accident case. Go to the scene, processing the crime scene, traffic accident and termination of handling the traffic accident scene Termination is the final step in handling the traffic accident scene. Factors that become obstacles in the investigation of traffic accidents are the human factor, in this case what causes damage so that obstacles in the investigation process are the community, suspects and people who are not interested, natural factors in the form of rain, wind, dew, delays in reporting received from the parties concerned.

Radiation imaging of a highly contaminated filter train inside Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station unit 2 using an integrated Radiation Imaging System based on a Compton camera

ABSTRACT The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) suffered a meltdown in the aftermath of the large tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on 11 March 2011. A massive amount of radioactive substance was spread over a wide area both inside and outside the FDNPS site. In this study, we present an approach for visualizing a radioactive hotspot on a standby gas-treatment system filter train, a highly contaminated piece of equipment in the air-conditioning room of the Unit 2 reactor building of FDNPS, using radiation imaging based on a Compton camera. In addition to fixed-point measurements using only the Compton camera, data acquisition while moving using an integrated Radiation Imaging System (iRIS), which combines a Compton camera with a simultaneous localization and mapping device and a survey meter, enabled the three-dimensional visualization of the hotspot location on the filter train. In addition, we visualized the hotspot and quantitatively evaluated its radioactivity. Notably, the visualized hotspot location and estimated radioactivity value are consistent with the accident investigation report of the FDNPS. Finally, the extent to which the radioactivity increased the ambient dose equivalent rate in the surrounding environment was explored.

The role of psychological surveillance in reducing harm and building resilience in police forensic investigators

Police staff working in digital forensics, scenes of crime and accident investigators as forensic investigators are exposed to scenes and materials which are highly distressing. Two thousand twenty-eight forensic investigators completed a psychological surveillance survey measuring the proportion of investigators above the cut-off level of anxiety, depression, PTSD, burnout, and secondary trauma. The results showed that forensic investigators had higher symptoms than those found in police officers. Measures of workability and health beliefs were used to identify the most significant hazards and resilience factors for this group. The paper provides recommendations for interventions to reduce the levels of psychological distress.

US Chemical Safety Board issues delayed reports

The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) in December concluded three long-stalled accident investigation reports. The board also released a study concluding that over the last 2.5 years, 224 incidents occurred in the US that were serious enough to trigger a CSB investigation. The incidents killed 31 people and caused 126 serious injuries; 101 of the events resulted in over $1 million in damages. Also in December, the US Senate confirmed a new CSB member, Catherine J. K. Sandoval , and elevated CSB member Stephen Owens to chair the safety board. The CSB now has three members, short of its legally set level of five. The 25-year-old board’s charge is to investigate and determine the root cause of significant chemical accidents; recommend improvements to operations of refineries, chemical plants, laboratories, and other facilities; and boost federal and state regulatory oversight of these sites. An accumulation of unfinished investigations

Investigation of non-fatal occupational accidents and their causes in Turkish shipyards

This study reports new data for 1028 non-fatal occupational accidents dated between January 2010 and April 2015 by applying the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique. A comprehensive survey was conducted at four shipyards in Tuzla, Istanbul and Yalova regions in Turkey and a workplace questionnaire appropriate for the AHP technique was carried out. The obtained results indicated that inadequate safety equipment and protective clothing, unsuitable usage of machines and tools, and disobeying occupational health and safety (OHS) procedures were the most common risk factors for the accidents. Hence the preventive measures could be identified by analyzing non-fatal accident data. After the identification of the descriptive measures, the priority order of these measures was asked of the occupational safety professionals in the shipbuilding industry, and we used the AHP method to evaluate the results.

Readability of maritime accident reports: a comparative analysis

ABSTRACT Maritime accident reporting is performed as a means for experience feedback within and across organizations. While the quality and representativeness of the findings are critical to prevent similar accidents from occurring in the future, various contextual factors concerning the reports can affect the ability of various actors to use these effectively as a basis for learning and action. Research suggests that the readability of safety documents is essential to their successful adoption and use. However, there is currently no empirical knowledge about the readability of maritime accident reports. Consequently, this study presents a comparative analysis of quantitative readability metrics of maritime accident reports. Three-year data extracted from reports by five English-language national accident investigation authorities, and one industry reporting system are used. The results show that the language used is commonly at the post-secondary reading level. Reports by the Nautical Institute’s Mariners’ Alerting and Reporting Scheme are written at a high school level and thus easier to read. Statistical variation of readability of reports by different organizations is significant. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. The main recommendation for reporting organizations is to be mindful of language complexity and simplify where possible.

Analysis of the accident at Reftinskaya GRES, which occurred on 08/22/2016

THE PURPOSE. The work is devoted to the study and analysis of the accident on August 22, 2016 at the Reftinskaya GRES, which resulted in the operation of technological protection and, as a result, cascade shutdowns with a violation of the integrity of the UES of Russia. It should be noted that Reftinskaya GRES is one of the largest thermal power plants in Russia, with an installed capacity of 3800 MW.METHODS. Within the framework of the task set, the authors carried out a number of studies aimed at identifying cause-and-effect relationships on the basis of accident investigation acts.RESULTS. The grounds for the occurrence and development of the accident are investigated and the main causes of the accident are identified.CONCLUSION. A unified cause-and-effect diagram of the occurrence and development of an accident was compiled, indicating the events, the time of their occurrence and the links between them.

Data as evidence: Research on the influencing factors and mechanisms of coal mine safety supervision effect in China

Coal mine safety supervision is an important way to ensure the safe production of coal enterprises. Most of the existing researches focus only on the impact of single or a few combination factors among "country supervision, local inspection, social monitoring, enterprise responsibility and miners' own factors" on the coal mine safety supervision effect, and lack quantitative comparative research on the factors regulation effect. Considering these, this paper creatively explores the relative importance and interaction mechanism of the above five factors on the coal mine safety supervision effect from an overall perspective. Based on the scale design and questionnaire survey, this paper uses the data-driven multivariate statistical analysis to construct a second-order confirmatory factor analysis model (CFA) and a structural equation model (SEM) of influencing factors. The results show the following: ①Among the three main potential variables that affecting the coal mine safety supervision effect, local inspection has the greatest impact, followed by country supervision and social monitoring. Through in-depth analysis, these observation variables are the key elements influencing supervision effect, such as the discipline integrity of local inspection authorities, the comprehensive quality of local inspection teams, the fulfilment degree of country supervision responsibilities, the authority of country supervision on administrative enforcement, and the transparency and timeliness of information disclosure in accident investigations. ②Country supervision has a significant positive impact on local inspection and enterprise responsibility. Local inspection has a significant positive impact on enterprise responsibility. Social monitoring has a direct or indirect positive impact on enterprise responsibility. Enterprise responsibility has a significant positive impact on miners' own factors.