British Columbia Rapid Transit Company: Contractor Management Safety Initiative

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2 British Columbia Rapid Transit Company: Contractor Management Safety Initiative When TransLink decided to launch the new Compass electronic fare card, they also announced a $200 million plan to install faregates and upgrade 33 SkyTrain stations over a two year period. Never before in the history of SkyTrain had construction work been scheduled at all stations simultaneously while the system was maintaining essentially normal revenue service. According to occupational health & safety legislation, in a multi-employer worksite, one employer, the Prime Contractor, must Ensure coordination of activities of employers, workers and other persons at the workplace relating to occupational health and safety; and Do all that is reasonably practicable to establish and maintain a system or process that will ensure compliance with the Act and the regulations BCRTC entered into the Prime Contractor role during this major overhaul of SkyTrain with three main objectives: 1. Avoid putting customers, construction contractors and employees in harm s way; 2. Maintain the flow of SkyTrain passengers and pedestrians throughout the project; and 3. Ensure that public perception of Compass Card remains positive throughout and upon completion of this project Taking on the role of Prime Contractor As Prime Contractor, we researched and established strict safety standards to be followed by SkyTrain employees and construction workers and contractors working onsite at SkyTrain stations. Linked to our Enterprise Risk Management System, we did an exhaustive pre-startup risk analysis before developing and monitoring specific standards for: Work and safety practices Contractor passes and identification Job hazard analysis 1 P a g e

3 Throughout the project, contractors attended BCRTC s quarterly safety meetings: providing constructive feedback sharing ideas, performance metrics and best practices that helped each of us improve safety at our respective worksites. Worksite audits BCRTC conducted daily audits of all worksites, visiting some sites multiple times during a day. The auditor made note of physical factors such as the weather conditions and surface conditions. And where it was necessary, immediate remedial corrective actions were taken. Repeated or willful violations resulted in contractors personnel being sent away from BCRTC premises. More than 22,000 photos were taken of contractor activities documenting both compliance and non-compliance: providing evidence that we had been to their work sites, reviewed documentation and inspected their work areas. The daily Job Hazard Analysis BCRTC required a daily job hazard analysis (JHA) to be completed at each work place. Each JHA required: Signatures of all workers on site Work processes for the day or time period A list of work site hazards and mitigation strategies Shortly after the JHA was made a BCRTC requirement, contractors complied and routinely produce JHAs on a daily basis. These JHAs are used to further refine and update the audits. The Pedestrian Management Plan BCRTC required contractors to develop a Pedestrian Management Plan (PDMP) for each worksite to be approved by TransLink and BCRTC. This plan showed the proposed method of controlling pedestrian movements in and around the station during peak and non-peak revenue service hours. Each plan had to address the issues of passengers with accessibility needs, and station access for emergency responders. It also required contractors to address access to any businesses in or around the station and exit areas. 2 P a g e

4 The numbers $200 million dollar project only 5 employee work days lost! In 15 months, BCRTC trained nearly 800 contractors, and 5000 workplace audits were conducted at 33 SkyTrain Stations. Throughout construction, SkyTrain carried over 140 million passengers on the system, with 280 million individuals entering or exiting the system. As a result of these overall efforts, contractors only incurred five lost time accidents (LTAs) in the 21.5 months (to date): equaling an LTA rate of about 2.5 compared against a construction industry average of 4.3. These five injuries each produced a single day of lost time, well below the industry average of 55 days. Only one Worker s Compensation Board order was made: at Lonsdale Quay inside construction hoarding related to injurious fumes from welding. Not a single WorkSafe BC penalty was issued throughout this time. With all this activity and 140 million passengers carried, only three passengers were injured: two injured on a train that emergency braked; and the other tripped over a cement obstacle. Contractor compliance with fall protection regulations greatly improved throughout the project. In February of 2012, fall protection issues accounted for 25% of all safety deficiencies. In March, this number dropped to 12% and to 7% in April. Other metrics included the following monthly rates of occurrence Type of Events involving BCRTC Contractors Jun to Mar Jan to May Damage to BCRTC assets Track closure /service interruption Passenger / BCRTC employee injury Near miss (i.e. no injury or damage) Environmental spill/release Disabling injury to contractor Total Events Values for construction period have been adjusted to account for a quadrupling of contractor activity; and all values represent a monthly rate of occurrence for the period identified at the top of the column 2 Highlighted values identify the period with the highest rate of occurrence for a type of event 3 P a g e

5 Other improvements BCRTC s contract language has been updated to specify our role as Prime Contractor and the specific safety requirements of contractors. Our contractors are increasingly aware of our standards and expectations, which has helped to reduce delays in commencing work. Contractors are made aware that substandard acts and conditions will not be tolerated, and the process of accident/incident reporting between contractors and BCRTC has been substantially improved. The results In addition to the small number of injuries, there were very few interruptions to service and minimal damage to stations during this time. Many potential issues were spotted during audits before any damage could be done, and some design issues were spotted before the work was handed over to the contractor. The project helped educate and train the project contractor about safe passenger movement, about which they had little or no awareness before the project. It also helped build better awareness among BCRTC maintenance staff about safe passenger movement. BCRTC has adopted many of the practices developed for contractors during the project, which will help to keep SkyTrain a safer and more efficient system for years to come. While the standards were developed for this particular project, these standards will be used for all future construction projects. How can other agencies use this information? Numerous documents outlining BCRTC s approach were developed along with the various programs that were updated or created, all of which can be shared with others. Including Passenger Management Plans Contractor Identification Job Hazard Analysis Contractor Site Orientation Training Track Limits of Approach 4 P a g e