Safety Manual Research Articles

Assessing International Transferability of Highway Safety Manual Crash Prediction Algorithm and Its Components

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) provides an algorithm and associated knowledge to predict crashes on different types of facilities. This algorithm requires calibration to current local conditions through a procedure prescribed in the HSM to enhance its transferability. However, no procedure assesses the transferability. To fill this void, this paper focuses on a methodology to assess the transferability of the key HSM algorithm components—the baseline safety performance function and the crash modification factors (CMFs)—and uses the Italian road network as an illustrative case study. The calibration of the HSM crash prediction model is investigated with a data set for two-lane two-way rural highways to demonstrate some tools that could be used by jurisdictions around the world to assess the validity and compatibility of the CMFs and the base models, as well as the performance of the complete algorithm. A comparison with the results from a similar study carried out in Canada is provided to supplement the conclusions on the transferability of the HSM algorithm outside the United States.

Comparison of Safety Performance Models for Urban Roundabouts in Italy and Other Countries

In Italy, almost half of all road crashes occur at intersections, primarily in urban areas. In recent years the widespread conversion of at-grade intersections to roundabouts has brought many safety advantages. To assess the safety benefits of roundabouts, transportation professionals need the powerful statistical tool known as the safety performance function (SPF). To date there has been no reported application of this tool to assess the relative safety performance of Italian urban roundabouts. This paper fills that void by using data sets from two municipalities in northern Italy. SPFs were estimated for each city with the negative binomial error distribution and then recalibrated for application in the other city by using the procedure described in the Highway Safety Manual. Model reliability and between-city transferability were evaluated with the cumulative residuals method. To assess how the Italian roundabout SPFs might be used to learn lessons from differences in crash experience for similar intersections elsewhere, a comparison with models from other countries is also provided. This comparison reveals that Italian roundabouts tend to be less safe. Potential reasons for this finding are explored.

건축물 해체공사의 통합 안전관리 가이드라인 개발 및 적용성 평가

국내 건축물 해체공사의 안전관리 분야는 연구, 제도정비 및 실무 차원에서 소외되어온 경향이 있다. 해체공사의 수행과정에 있어서 체계적이지 못한 안전관리 실태, 부실한 교육체계, 활용할 수 있는 교육용 교재의 미흡 등은 안전사고의 빈도 및 사고발생시 중대사고로 이어지는 주요 원인이 되며 그 수준은 외국의 경우와 비교하여 볼 때 대단히 높은 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 국내 해체업계 현황의 개선을 목표로 기계식 전면해체공사 및 리모델링을 위한 부분해체공사를 포괄하는 통합 안전관리 가이드라인을 개발하였다. 구체적인 연구 성과물은 안전관리매뉴얼, 체크리스트, 포켓용 팸플릿, 전자매뉴얼 등이며, 연구성과의 검증을 위하여 해체공사 유경험자를 대상으로 실무에 대한 적용성 평가를 수행하였다. Safety management for building deconstruction works has been received extremely limited attention in the domestic construction society. Lack of systematic safety management practices and defective education system lead to the high level of fatality compared to that of advanced countries. Under the above domestic deconstruction environment, the authors intend to develope an integrated safety management guidelines that covers both mechanical and partial deconstruction works. Research outcome includes such specific educational materials as safety manual, checklists, pocket pamphlets, and e-manuals. Furthermore, to validate the applicability of the above materials, questionnaire survey and interviews were conducted. Detailed descriptions are provided for each research outcome.

Disaggregate safety evaluation for signalized intersections and evaluation tool

AbstractThis study was to evaluate traffic safety of four‐legged signalized intersections and to develop a spreadsheet tool for identifying high‐risk intersections taking into consideration vehicle movements, left‐turn signal phase types, and times of day. The study used data from Virginia and employed count data models and the empirical Bayes (EB) method for safety evaluation of such intersections. It was found that crash pattern defined by vehicle movements involved in a crash and time of day are important factors for intersection crash analysis. Especially for a safety performance function (SPF), a model specification (Poisson or NB), inclusion of left‐turn signal types, type of traffic flow variables, variable functional forms, and/or magnitudes of coefficients turned out to be different across times of day and crash patterns. The spreadsheet application tool was developed incorporating the developed SPFs and the EB method. As long as Synchro files for signal plans and crash database are maintained, no additional field data collection efforts are required. Adjusting the developed SPFs and the spreadsheet for recent traffic and safety conditions can be done by applying the calibration methods employed in the SafetyAnalyst software and the Highway Safety Manual. Implementing the developed tool equipped with streamlining data entry would greatly improve accuracy and efficiency of safety evaluation of four‐legged signalized intersections in localities and highway agencies that cannot operate the SafetyAnalyst. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Safety Impacts of Design Element Trade-Offs for Multilane Rural Highways

Roadway designs intend to provide a safe facility addressing mobility concerns, accommodating the physical and social environment and within financial constraints. Sometimes, trade-offs among these may be needed to deliver the desired project and designers need tools to estimate the safety implications from such decisions. The work completed here aimed to develop a set of recommendations to be used in evaluating safety implications from design element trade-offs. The effort focused on developing crash-prediction models and accident modification factors (AMFs) for multilane rural roads regarding lane width, shoulder width, and median width and type. The available data limited these models to four-lane roadways with 12-ft lanes. Separate models were developed for divided and undivided facilities as well as for single-vehicle, multivehicle, and all crashes involving both total and injury crashes. The AMF values recommended here were compared to those proposed in the Highway Safety Manual. Most of the proposed values are in accordance with previous work and demonstrate the effect of these elements on crash occurrence.

A framework for estimating the safety effects of roadway lighting at intersections

National- and state-level guidance documents conclusively state that fixed lighting improves intersection safety. The sentiment is consistent with other design and safety manuals and is supported by a series of consistent safety findings; however, most published lighting-safety research is focused on rural, stop-controlled intersections and is limited by several methodological issues. The relationship between safety and intersection lighting at rural, signalized and urban locations is not as well documented. Methodological advancements in highway safety analysis justify new estimations of the safety effects of intersection lighting. This paper describes a proposed framework to estimate the safety effects of fixed lighting at a variety of intersection types and locations. Several key issues are explored including availability of relevant crash, lighting, and roadway inventory data; relevant data element structures; proposed analysis taxonomies to assess lighting-safety effects within and across different intersection classifications; specification and estimation of models to estimate expected crash frequencies during day and night; techniques to interpret model parameters, including variable elasticity; and tests of model transferability across states. A sample framework execution using Minnesota intersection data is provided. Results indicate a much lower overall safety benefit from lighting than published studies, but are consistent with estimates included in Highway Safety Manual research.

ICE publishes new health and safety manual

ICE is about to publish a new and comprehensive manual on construction health and safety. Editors Ciaran McAleenan of Expert Ease International and David Oloke of Wolverhampton University report.

Safety Effectiveness of Lane and Shoulder Width Combinations on Rural, Two-Lane, Undivided Roads

There is a need to evaluate low-cost safety strategies that states may implement as part of their Strategic Highway Safety Plan. FHWA organized a pooled fund study of 26 states to evaluate several low-cost safety strategies, including the reallocation of total paved width. This study identifies whether it is safer to increase lane width or increase shoulder width given a fixed total width. Geometric, traffic, and crash data were obtained for more than 52,000 mi of roadway in Pennsylvania and Washington State. A case-control approach was applied to evaluate the safety effectiveness of various lane–shoulder configurations. There was a general reduction in the odds ratio as total paved width, lane width, and shoulder width increased individually; this is consistent with previous research. However, the primary research objective was to estimate the safety effectiveness of reallocating a fixed total paved width. Individual state results did not indicate a clear trade-off between lane and shoulder width for a fixed total width. Supplementing the results of this study with previous research, crash modification factors (CMFs) are provided for several lane–shoulder combinations. The selected values present a more apparent trade-off, indicating a slight benefit to increasing lane width for a fixed total width. Importantly, the results differ from other studies that developed CMFs without considering the interaction between lane and shoulder width, including those studies currently referenced in the Highway Safety Manual. This raises the question of whether CMFs should reflect the interaction between lane and shoulder width.

Calibration of the Highway Safety Manual's Accident Prediction Model for Italian Secondary Road Network

The forthcoming first edition of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) will introduce safety predictive models both for road segments and intersections. A key issue for allowing HSM to become a standard for road owners and managers worldwide is the transferability of the predictive models to different networks. The application of the calibration procedure of the HSM model to different countries has been evaluated, with all practical and potential application problems outlined. In this study, the calibration procedure of the HSM model has been applied to the road network of the Italian province of Arezzo to evaluate the effective transferability of this methodology to a region characterized by a different environment and different road characteristics, driver behavior, and crash reporting systems than those on which the HSM models have been developed. The considered road network covers 1,300 km of rural two-lane highways located in the Arezzo province, and a 3-year (2002–2004) accident database has been used. The considerable difference between the road network of the Italian province of Arezzo and the one of Minnesota, for which the HSM model has been developed, causes practical application problems, mainly related to segmentation and over-estimation of curvature effects, which are discussed in the paper. Four approaches to define the calibration factor have been applied and discussed to determine the most effective one. Finally, this work points out the problems related to the identification of data needs and necessary treatments for the HSM model calibration and application.

North north western state university mathematics department safety manual

North north western state university mathematics department safety manual

Safety instrument system manuals—a need to balance reliability and safety

AbstractWith the recently approved IEC 61511 and ANSI/ISA‐84.00.01 standards, process industry companies are being challenged to determine the level of performance required from their safety instrumented functions (SIF) and to verify that the design, installation, operation, and maintenance employed is sufficient to ensure that the required performance is sustained until the SIF is decommissioned. As a practical matter, user companies must self‐certify or user approve their SIF equipment, since they are responsible for the correct operation of the SIF in the operating environment, not just individual components as manufactured. To accomplish this, user companies need lifecycle assistance from equipment manufacturers, irrespective of hardware or software certification status related to IEC 61508. One of the best means to communicate the necessary information is via a safety manual for those involved in instrument system design installation and operation. IEC 61508 requires that equipment manufacturers provide a safety manual with any product claimed to comply with IEC 61508. Although required for product certification, it is the authors' current experience that quality and consistency in safety manuals is lacking. Part of this is due to IEC 61508 not providing a clear concise template with minimum requirements. The safety manual requirements are scattered throughout the rather complex standard. This article seeks to provide a user's perspective of what essential information is needed from equipment manufacturers to not only comply with IEC 61508, but also to provide enough information to the user of the product to allow the essential balance of reliability and safety in both SIF and instrumented protective function applications. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2007

Determination of Beryllium Compounds by NIOSH 7303

Abstract The fourth edition of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Manual of Analytical Methods contains a new, simplified procedure for elemental analysis in workplace atmospheres by Inductively Coupled Argon Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) titled NIOSH 7303. This method uses hot block digestion with hydrochloric acid (HCl) and nitric acid (HNO3). The method was presented as fully valid for elemental beryllium. It was further investigated and also found to be valid for beryllium sulfate tetrahydrate and has a recovery efficiency of about 80 % for beryllium oxide. Additionally, no matrix effect on beryllium analysis is apparent by NIOSH 7303 for five common sampling media: polyvinylchloride filters, mixed cellulose ester filters, Whatman® 42 filters, Ghost™ wipes, and Palintest® wipes. Finally, the method has been reevaluated and found to produce a beryllium detection level of 0.0002 μg/mL (0.005 μg/sample for air samples) and a quantifiable level of 0.0005 (0.0125 μg/sample). At this detection limit, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) of 0.002 mg/m3 can be achieved at the method's detection level with an air sample of 2.5 L or one tenth of the PEL with a sample of 25 L under the prescribed preparation and analytical conditions.

Proposed safety measures for work after ozone-induced deodorization in a hotel.

There is now a trend in the hotel business to use ozonegenerating equipment daily to remove tobacco and body odor from guest rooms, relying on the effects of sterilization, deodorization, and bleaching by ozone. Ozone can deodorize every corner of a room because it is a gas. Moreover, since it decomposes to oxygen after use, it has been thought to be comparatively safe but, the strong oxidization effect of ozone may cause adverse effects on humans depending on the concentration. The health effects of ozone have been reported as follows: 0.01 ppm; threshold for keen sense of smell, 0.1–0.3 ppm; irritating to mucous membranes of nose and throat in most individuals, 0.4 ppm; breathing disorder, 0.8–1.7 ppm; upper respiratory irritation, 1.0 ppm; cough and feeling of fatigue, 1.5 ppm; chest pain and depression, under 9.0 ppm; dyspnea and a lung congestion, 1,700 ppm; death within several minutes. While the ozone-generating equipment is in operation, a sign is put on the door, warning workers not to enter the hotel room. Nevertheless, during busy periods sometimes workers must clean the room while ozone is being generated or immediately after ozone generation has stopped, and some workers have complained of eye and/or throat irritation. In order to compile a health and safety manual, we measured the concentrations of ozone during and after the generation of ozone in several guest rooms and a corridor. The information is used to recommend how long workers should wait before entering a room after ozone generation in a hotel. This is the first report on the safety manual based on the results of ozone measurements. Subjects and Methods

Level of Service of Safety: Conceptual Blueprint and Analytical Framework

While some initial and significant progress has been made in the development of a highway safety manual, much remains to be done in the areas of conceptual development and the diagnostics of safety problems. The concept of level of service of safety (LOSS) in the framework of safety performance function is introduced, and the problem of diagnostics is addressed. LOSS reflects how the roadway segment is performing in regard to its expected accident frequency and severity at a specific level of annual average daily traffic. It provides a comparison of accident frequency and severity only with the expected norms; it does not, however, provide any information related to the nature of the safety problem itself. If the safety problem is present, LOSS will describe only its magnitude. The nature of the problem is determined through diagnostic analysis by direct diagnostics and pattern recognition techniques, which are also discussed.

Sleep-Disordered Breathing in Middle-Aged Adults Predicts No Significantly Higher Rates of Traffic Violations

The American Medical Association 1 American Medical Association Policy compendium of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association, Chicago, IL1996 Google Scholar has recommended that guidelines be developed for the driving licensure of persons who have sleep-related disorders that would be based on the extent to which those disorders contribute to traffic accidents and injuries. There is concern that regulators might attempt to restrict the driving privileges of apnea patients because of “lapses of consciousness” as defined by the “inability to respond rationally to the environment (excluding psychiatric conditions).” 2 State of California Department of Motor Vehicles. Lapse of consciousness disorders. In: Division of driver safety manual. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Motor Vehicles, 1995; 18: 22–18.50 Google Scholar

‘Safety first’: A simple and practical safety manual for the analytical laboratory

The emerging analytical laboratory of the late 1990s is based on the technical, quality assurance/quality (QA/QC) control, and safety manuals. While much emphasis has been placed on analytical techniques and QA/QC programs, laboratory safety should not be addressed only in cases of emergency. However, following safety guidelines may not be simple. In many cases in the United States, Federal or State laws, and city or county ordinances are not clear, or limited in scope. University‐affiliated laboratories can often rely on the office of safety and environmental health for university‐wide safety policies. Because these policies are often difficult to implement and because relying on common sense for laboratory safety is insufficient, we drafted ‘Safety First’, a simple and practical laboratory safety manual. Its objective is to highlight the ‘details’ that make the laboratory a safe and pleasant place to work in. It is not intended to replace any other official safety document. It is primarily intended for University‐affiliated laboratories, but it may be easily adapted to other laboratory conditions, under the direction of the safety officer.

Revising Safety Instructions with Focus Groups

This article analyzes the use of focus groups for the evaluation of a safety manual. To avoid one of the possible disadvantages of using focus groups, namely, sequencing or dominance problems, the method was combined with a troubleshooting text evaluation method: the plus-minus method. The combined approach produced valuable information about complex acceptance and relevance problems—information that could not easily have been obtained with other methods—part of which became available only after extensive discussion, during which opinions often changed. Information from the focus groups appeared to form a solid basis for decisions on revising or maintaining the text. Group discussion of critical remarks clarified whether the problems were related to the text or the company situation in which the manual functioned. In this way, problems with the text could sometimes be avoided by changing the situation or by explaining the situation to the readers.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book review in this ArticleNATURAL ANTIMICROBIAL SYSTEMS AND FOOD PRESERVATION, V.M. Dillon and R.G. Board, edsTHE HACCP FOOD SAFETY MANUAL, Joan K. Loken, ed.

Iron content of some east Indian foods: Effect of cookware

Two percent () of food service workers at Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Little Rock were diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) over a two year period. These injuries are work related. This project used three methods to identify motions that can provoke hand/wrist injuries in daily food service tasks. The first method was a mail survey sent to Arkansas Hospitals to gather information on types of motions involved in daily tasks and occurrences of job-related hand/wrist injuries. The second method was videotaping of six employees during a trayline meal service. This tape was reviewed with an Occupational Therapist using an evaluation tool called a goniometer to measure the degree of flexion and extension of the wrist. Flexion of the wrist past 40° is a known risk factor for CTS. The third method was actual observation of these same employees for specific motions known to increase risks for hand/wrist injuries. Survey results identified 3 (27%, N = 11) hospitals that reported job-related hand/wrist injuries with three diagnosed as CTS and one as tendonitis. The most commonly identified motions were bending the wrist (82%), using fingers constantly (64%) and twisting the wrist (45%). These same motions were identified as ones which were highly repetitive being performed 20 minutes or more (82%, 45%, and 36% respectively). Review of the videotape showed two employees with average wrist flexion of 62° and 75°. These three methods have helped to identify types of motions as well as the severity of these motions in hospital food service that can cause job related hand/wrist injuries. Based on these data, a safety manual and training classes are being developed to reduce the risk of job-related hand/wrist injuries at VAMC.

Fire Safety and Protection in Historic Buildings in England and Ireland – Part II

Outlines a broad strategy for fire safety management, including the development of a proper safety manual, the appointment of a fire safety manager, written emergency procedures, site plans, ongoing maintenance and evaluation of safety systems, and post‐fire procedures. Briefly discusses upgrading structures with sensitivity, which is of particular concern regarding historic buildings, and details specific materials and techniques which may be relevant. Discusses building‐control issues in Ireland and current fire‐control regulations both there and pertaining to the EC.