Seoul City Records Entire Construction Process on Video... Full Effort to Prevent Accidents

On the 23rd, Seoul City announced that it will be the first in the country to manage all construction processes at construction sites by recording videos. Initially, a one-year pilot program will be implemented at 74 public construction sites with construction costs exceeding 10 billion KRW, and it plans to expand the application to public construction projects under 10 billion KRW and private construction sites.

According to Seoul City, the construction industry experiences 2 to 3 times more industrial accident fatalities than manufacturing, service, and transportation/warehousing/telecommunications industries. The number of accident victims in the construction industry has been steadily increasing over the past decade, reaching a maximum of 31,200 last year from 29,943 in 2021.

Records of construction processes have mainly been managed through photos and drawings, making it difficult to identify causes when accidents related to safety or quality occur, and the time required for cause investigation is considerable. Safety inspections at construction sites are mostly conducted by supervisors visiting the site directly, so if site supervision is neglected, it can lead to poor construction and safety accidents.

Example of video shooting at a construction site
Photo by Seoul City

The city emphasized the need to establish a management system that allows real-time, continuous monitoring of construction sites without temporal or spatial constraints, and to record and manage the entire construction process on video from the Seoul City supervisor’s office and other locations. Utilizing videos can prevent safety and quality accidents, lay the foundation for high-quality construction, and serve as evidence for cause investigation and future countermeasure planning in case of unexpected accidents.

The purpose of using video records is to enable rapid cause identification when accidents occur. Even if defects are found in facilities, analyzing the recorded construction process videos makes it possible to find the reasons without dismantling the facility or digging the ground, which is expected to facilitate future facility maintenance.

The city distributed manuals containing shooting procedures, standards, and storyboards to construction sites so that anyone can easily follow the record management process. Detailed standards regarding shooting methods, equipment, and management were also established to prevent omission of major construction tasks or degradation of video quality during the construction process. In particular, the city announced that it will distribute manuals to enable continuous monitoring of the site, Seoul City situation room, and supervisors’ offices to protect citizens’ lives and property while making video record management easy for anyone to follow.

Shooting is divided into site panorama shooting, core (major and hazardous tasks) shooting, and close-up (continuous) shooting. Site panorama shooting captures the entire structure completion process using fixed closed-circuit television (CCTV) and drones. Core shooting records each process from material delivery to construction sequence according to design drawings, work methods, and inspections from multiple angles.

Close-up shooting continuously records detailed work processes and small movements of workers using body cameras and mobile CCTV. This serves as a black box that can be used as evidence in case of safety accidents.

Kim Seong-bo, Director of the Urban Infrastructure Headquarters of Seoul City, said, “By recording all processes at construction sites on video, we can prevent safety accidents from blind spots in safety management, prevent poor construction, ensure safety and quality, enable early accident response and strengthen recurrence prevention, and improve maintenance efficiency. We will do our best to quickly establish video record management at construction sites to build a safe urban infrastructure that protects citizens’ lives and property.”