Automated performance assessment of prevention through design and planning (PtD/P) strategies in construction

Construction sites are among the most dangerous workplaces due to their complex, dynamic, continuously changing work environment. Many existing workplace safety planning techniques rely on two-dimensional drawings and manual expertise. Such efforts are cumbersome as safety plans quickly become outdated as construction work progresses. There has been significant research into automated safety planning, yet no community-wide standard exists for objectively measuring and comparing automated safety assessment efficacy. To address this, an automated performance assessment framework is proposed. It evaluates input solutions regarding newly formalized quantitative soundness, completeness, and spatial correctness indicators. The ground truth of the deadliest hazard falls-from-height is collected through a workshop with domain experts. We validate the proposed framework in a case study, where the performance of our previously developed automated safety planning algorithm is assessed by our new performance assessment framework. The results yield valuable insights into the importance of automated evaluation frameworks that can convince practitioners to invest in human-assisted Prevention through Design and Planning strategies.