Falls from bridge decks is a common safety issue among bridge maintenance and inspection workers. These workers traditionally rely on existing bridge guardrails for their protection against falls when performing on-the-deck work operations. However, a disproportionate number of the bridge guardrails do not provide sufficient protection based on the 42 ± 3 in. regulatory barrier height requirement. One proactive and effective intervention that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and a few other transportation agencies have adopted is the installation of Fall Protection Supplementary Devices (FPSDs) – to temporarily increase the barrier height during work. However, many manufactured and marketed FPSDs are not compatible – or do not firmly attach onto every bridge guardrail. Therefore, workers are often tasked with assessing the compatibility of FPSDs with particular bridge guardrails before initiating work. Traditionally, this has been performed using an inefficient trial-and-error based approach – where potential FPSDs are procured, transported, and iteratively tested with a number of bridge guardrails. Apart from this inefficient testing procedure, current literature does not offer any guidance on the selection of efficient FPSDs based on the advantages they offer. Consequently, compatible FPSDs that are not optimal for safety, productivity, and work-efficiency are regularly adopted in practice. To address this issue, the reported research focused on identifying compatible FPSDs – that offer the most advantages – for over 22,000 bridge guardrails across the state of North Carolina. The study objectives were accomplished by (1) building virtual prototypes of existing bridge guardrails and FPSD systems and assessing compatibility in a virtual setting; (2) identifying desirable FPSD characteristics that can lead to improvements in work-efficiency, productivity, and safety; (3) evaluating potential FPSD systems for each guardrail using the structured Choosing by Advantages (CBA) method; and (4) conducting field experiments with workers where physiological responses and productivity rates were monitored. The finding suggests that the adoption of the CC120 offers the most benefits in terms of safety, productivity, and work-efficiency. The findings of this research addresses a significant and nationwide safety and work-efficiency issue experienced by all transportation agencies as reported by AASHTO.
