Assessing construction safety risks in large urban complex projects: an interval ordinal priority approach

Purpose To meet an ever - increasing urbanization demand, urban complex projects have evolved to form the development type of HOPSCA (an acronym for Hotel, Office, Park, Shopping mall, Convention and Apartment, representing a new type of urban complex). Its integrated functions, complex structures and superior siting expose HOPSCA’s construction phase to higher and more uncertain safety risks. Despite this, research on construction safety risks of large urban complexes is scarce. This study addresses this by introducing the interval ordinal priority approach (Interval-OPA) method to build a safety risk assessment model for HOPSCA, targeting its construction safety risk management. Design/methodology/approach This study initially identifies risk factors via literature review, field survey and three Delphi method rounds, forming a construction safety risk list of HOPSCA projects. Then, Interval-OPA is employed to create a safety risk assessment model, and its validity confirmed through a representative case study of an ongoing project. Lastly, uncertainty and weighting analyses of the model results identify the most probable major construction accidents, safety risk factors and targeted prevention strategies for the urban complex projects construction phase. Findings The findings reveal that (1) there are 33 construction safety risks in HOPSCA’s construction phase across 4 aspects: “man-machine-environment-management”; (2) object strikes are the most prominent of accidents and need to be prioritized for prevention, especially when managerial risks are arising; (3) falls from heights are evaluated with the highest level of uncertainty, which represents an ambiguous area for safety management and (4) the result of the risk evaluation shows that there are nine critical construction safety risk factors for the HOPSCA project and that most of the management-level risk factors have high uncertainty. This study explores and provides effective measures to combat these factors. Originality/value This study innovatively applies the Interval-OPA method to risk assessment, offering a fitting method for evaluating the HOPSCA project’s construction safety risks and accidents. The model aids decision-makers in appropriate risk classification and selection of scientific risk prevention strategies, enhances HOPSCA’s construction safety management system and even benefits all under-construction projects, promoting the construction industry’s sustainable development.