written by

Charles Raffensperger

February, 2020

It's a big world out there, full of lots of potential hazards for your field personnel. Before sending them out you need to be sure they understand the risks and are fully prepared to deal with them. Safety, above all else, should be the number one concern for any mobile data collection project.

Field data collection takes place in all different types of environments, conditions, and geo-political settings, from wilderness to rural to urban and everything in between, and all have unique challenges. Understanding the complete landscape and potential safety factors where your field crews will be working is critical to being prepared for those challenges. While the scope of potential concerns is almost limitless I'll try to touch on only some of the most common, and actionable, safety concerns and common sense methods of equiping and training your field personnel to deal with them.

The most logical starting point for this exercise is to ensure you have a system in place to identify, understand, evaluate, document and address all safety concerns by implementing appropriate preventative and protective measures. Risks should be evaulated on an ongoing basis and adjusted as necessary if conditions or requirements should change. Consider organizational changes to ensure someone is responsible for evaluating risks, creating best practices, and proactively addressing safety concerns by communicating them to field crews and enforcing them - this could be a single individual or a team.

Additionally, it's important to find out if there are safety guidelines that must be adhered to as a result of overarching contractual stipulations or regulatory rules. For example, when performing a field inventory on a construction site at the behest of the property owner are there specific rules or guidelines you must follow, such as OSHA standards? If you are inspecting power lines along a roadway are there state department of transportation safety rules that govern your work?

Preventive and protective measures should seek to:

• Eliminate the risk altogether
• Control the risk through active organizational measures
• Minimize the risk through safe processes
• Utilize any necessary protective equipment to also reduce or eliminate the risk

Construction Site Safety

Construction sites present their own special challenges and risks. In addition to any other specific and enforced guidelines for construction sites (such as OSHA rules) here are some common sense safety tips:

• Use the right tools – the tools used on the site must be in perfect working condition and they must be chosen to suit the task to be performed.
• Protection for the eyes and the ears – construction is a noisy process and it involves a lot of cutting and drilling, so workers need to wear equipment that protects them against the potential health problems caused by airborne particles or pieces of material as well as against loud noise and intense vibration.
• Head protection – hard hats must be worn by everyone on the job site,
• Use fall protection systems – harnesses, non-slip shoes, guardrails, edge-protected scaffolding and barricades used around shafts are essential for work safety on construction sites.
• Moving around safely – stairs and ladders must be climbed maintaining three points of contact with the ladder or stair, during ascending as well as during descending.

Vehicle & Driving Safety

Most field surveys involve a vehicle to transport field personnel to and from a site or sites, or along a route where they will perform a survey, inspection, or other field data viewing or collection tasks. In addition to good safety practices when out of the vehicle it is also equally important to consider the safe operation of the vehicle on a roadway or on any other surface.

• Ensure the vehicle itself is safe – is it in good working order and has it passed any required operating inspections?
• Plan ahead for your task and have all your equipment and tools ready – be prepared!
• Follow all rules of the road – this should go without saying but it's easy to fall into the trap of pushing the rules so you can complete your tasks more quickly
• Be respectful of other drivers and vehicles – you will be tempted to take attention away from the road while preoccupied with your field data collection task but that distraction could be fatal; instead, pull over in a safe place when/if you need to open and review the app and data on your device
• Make sure anything you are carrying on your vehicle is safely secured – there should be no chance any equipment you are hauling could become detached and present a danger to other drivers and vehicles
• Move your vehicle safely off the road before exiting to perform an inspection or inventory task – remember that other drivers may not be paying attention to your vehicle if you don't take care to move all the way out of the roadway
• Use appropriate signage or flagging (as per the local department of transportation guidelines) to signal to other traffic – it's incumbent on you to warn other drivers of your presence so they can safely navigate around you
• Wear appropriate reflective/high-visibility clothing including vests and hardhats – make yourself visible at all times of night or day
• Position yourself behind existing guardrails and/or stay as far back from the roadway shoulder as possible – this is obvious but important
• Always face traffic; never turn your back to the traffic – this is your safest position and orientation to be so you can see oncoming traffic

Environmental & Weather Conditions

Environmental conditions can also present a safety risk for the unprepared when out in the field, particularly in remote or wilderness areas where self-reliance is more important. There are virtually an unlimited number of factors inherent in safety concerns due to environmental or weather conditions but here are a few broad factors to consider:

• Be aware of the geo-political and/or socio-economic landscape where you will be working and take proper precautions if there are known risk factors
• Wear the right clothing for the weather conditions, including backup gear and clothing for colder weather
• Be aware of any forcast for dangerous weather and plan accordingly
• If you will be out in the sun apply sunscreen liberally
• In remote or wilderness areas ensure you have a foolproof method of communication and a contingency plan in case something unexpected happens
• Research wildlife that may exist in the vicinity where you will be and any risks it may pose

Because SpatialWorx is such a flexible platform that can be used for a huge number of potential field data collection solutions it is nearly impossible to anticipate and address all of the safety concerns that might be present. But hopefully this gets you thinking more carefully about your own situation and spur you to consider safety a top priority of all your projects. Happy collecting!!!