AN APPROACH FOR ESTIMATING TOTAL COST OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY FOR BUILDING CONSTRUCTIONS

Construction accidents are major problem in Turkish Construction industry and especially fatally rates are very high. Current legislative system on occupational safety in Turkey enforces employers to implement safety measures as well as safety management systems. However level of consciousness in the industry is unsatisfactory and safety are perceived as extra cost and unnecessary expenditure. Moreover, especially in small residential building constructions which have a big share in the industry and unfortunately safety measures to mitigate or abate construction risks do not exist. The study focuses on small residential building construction sites and in the scope of this study, thirty building projects are examined. For each building project, project cost including labour and material costs, service and consultancy costs for mechanical, electrical systems as well as architectural and structural services, costs for supervision and finally general expenditures for construction site facilities were calculated. On the other hand, occupational safety costs for personal protective equipment, collective protective measures, consultancy and training were determined. Work breakdown structures were established and for each work item firstly occupational risks were evaluated and furthermore according to risk scores safety measures to be implemented were defined and related costs were calculated. The study gave results for total safety cost on average, in terms of percentage of total project cost (3.73% of total project cost), safety cost per man-hour (0.40 USD) and safety cost in terms of unit construction area (11.60 USD per square meter). Since safety management is a part of whole project management process, study gives suggestions and techniques to calculate safety costs and implement safety measures as a part of project management service for professionals. Authors believe that suggested approach may easily developed by the usage of more data to establish a model for estimation not only for building construction sites but also for all construction projects.