Barriers, Bottlenecks, and Challenges in Implementing Safety I- and Safety II-Enabled Safe Systems of Working in Construction Projects: A Scoping Review

The construction industry has endured high incident rates for many decades. Although multiple safety measures in the form of Safety I- and II-enabled safe systems of working (SSoWs) have been implemented, statistics reveal that a significant prevalence of incidents prevails worldwide. However, there is limited information available about the actual factors that are impeding these SSoWs. This study investigates and evaluates the barriers, bottlenecks and challenges (BB&Cs) that hinder the implementation of Safety I- and II-enabled SSoWs in the construction industry. Using a scoping review methodology, a thorough search of articles documenting the BB&Cs of implementing Safety I- and II-enabled SSoWs was carried out using Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. An initiative model was employed for categorising BB&C to implement Safety I and II, which includes micro- (site), meso- (organisation), and macro (environment)-thematic groupings, as a guiding framework for the mapping and analysis of results. The search yielded 98 articles that discussed the implementation of Safety I and II, with 54 of them specifically related to BB&Cs. Emergent results emphasised how there is scant literature on the BB&Cs of implementation Safety I- and II-enabled SSoWs across site, organisation and environment levels. Extensive global research is necessary to comprehensively understand the obstacles to implementing Safety I and II in practice as a first step towards reducing incidents and accidents on site. Cumulatively, the findings suggest that implementing Safety I- and II-enabled SSoWs should be based on removing BB&Cs and evaluating how they affect safety performance.