Learning from Accidents: A Qualitative Analysis of Damage Data to Identify the Antecedents of Utility Strikes

Abstract

Underground utilities (particularly electricity and gas) pose a significant hazard to workers during excavation works. Even with advanced digital instruments for utility detection, governing standards and strict compliance regulations, utility strikes continue to occur at an alarming rate. Therefore, analysing utility strikes and their antecedents is necessary to determine their causes as a first step towards preventing them. A dataset of 10 case studies related to ‘dangerous occurrences’ and ‘lost time’ categories in utility strikes were selected for analysis based on purposive sampling. Identification of the incidents’ causes was performed by coding the excerpts of narrative within incident reports produced using the NVivo 12 software program. In total, 33 causes of incidents were identified and categorised into two thematic groups viz. worker or work related categories. The causes of incidents were then discussed, practical recommendations made and conclusions drawn. Finally, an innovative practical framework (based on pre-event, event and post-event phases) was developed to address the causes of incidents in utility strikes. Emergent findings provide a basis for firms and industries to augment the health and safety of workers employed on buried utility services projects.