Using virtual environments to support electrical safety awareness in construction

Safety is important to the construction industry. Every year lives are lost due to accidents that could have been prevented with proper training and awareness of workplace hazards. Electrical safety hazards are the cause of about a quarter of all deaths within the construction industry. Enhanced training methods that are active and interactive can augment electrical safety training for all construction workers and reduce accidents and fatalities caused by electrical shock. Virtual Environment (VE's) simulations have been used with success for safety training within the construction industry. VE simulation offers an active form of training that allows the user to interact with a modeled environment. This active training allows for a development of cognitive abilities and awareness that typically improve the users' comprehension of training material. This paper discusses issues concerning electrical safety within the construction industry. It then discusses the benefits of using an active training approach such as VE simulation and its effects on the cognitive abilities of users. Lastly, a proposed safety training program is discussed that can help augment electrical safety training practices in the construction industry. Within the proposed safety training program a VE simulation prototype is planned. The initial development of the prototype simulation is also presented.