Generating a Systematic Construction Accident Costs Calculation for Urban Rail Infrastructure Project

Izatul Farrita Mohd Kamar , Asmalia Che Ahmad , Mohmad Mohd Derus , Mohd Yusof Kasiron , Nik Nur Khairunnisa Nik Mohd Ainul Azman 1 Centre of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Seri Iskandar Campus, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak, Malaysia. 2,3,5 Faculty of Architecture Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Seri Iskandar Campus, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak,Malaysia. 4 Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd, Jalan Dungun, Bukit Damansara, 50490 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, the transportation industry infrastructure is rapidly moving towards a modern service. High speed rail (HSR) systems are already operationalised in many countries, such as Japan, England, Italy, Germany and France. Furthermore, the development of the whole European HSR network is planned. In this European context, the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) is aimed at standardising the HSR projects and concerned on safety issues (Diamantidis, Zuccarelli & Westhäuser, 2000).
In Malaysia, the operational of the urban rail transport project construction started in 2002 for Light Rapid Transport (LRT) and Kuala Lumpur (KL) Monorail services. This construction was managed by Syarikat Prasarana Negara Berhad, which focuses on major Malaysian public transport infrastructure projects. This project is forever expanding over time to increase and participate the urban public transportation services demand; one of the National Key Result Areas, which is a priority under the Government Transformation Programme.
Recently, Malaysia has made another excel in the urban rail infrastructure with the completion of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) 1 line from Sungai Buloh to Kajang in July 2017. Other rail infrastructure projects which are currently in construction progress are the MRT 2 line, from Serdang to Putrajaya, Light Rail Transit (LRT) 3 line and LRT Bandar Utama to Klang line. These developments indicate that Malaysia is in line with other developed countries that have highspeed and modern public transportation.
On 15 December, 2016, Malaysia and Singapore have signed a consensual agreement to develop the jointly 350km HSR project. This project will reduce the travelling time between the two cities from 2 hours to approximately 90 minutes. The HSR serves as an alternative mode for public transport travel between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Then, in the 2017 Budget, the Malaysian Prime Minister announced the government's intention to build the East Coast Rail Project (ECRL). ECRL is identified as a high impact infrastructure project that will form the backbone of ECER's multimodal transport infrastructure. ECRL will connect many rural townships and is part of a larger plan to connect rural areas (Yong, 2017). These rail infrastructure projects will complement the existing road/expressway infrastructure of the Lebuhraya Pantai Timur and the existing KTMB East Coast Line and ports.
With this rail infrastructure project rapid development, fatalities, serious injuries and damage to properties at recent project sites will occur each year. Opposing from small and medium-sized construction projects, majority of infrastructure projects frequently comprise a diversity of different tasks and features (Shiferaw et al., 2012). Due to the unique site conditions, delay, budget overruns (Kean, 2011) and hidden transaction costs have arose (Sha, 2011). In addition, the possibility of increase in accidents for this huge project is more than other types of construction, due to many numbers of workers, large amount of plants and equipment, a lot of materials used, complicated in operations and complex activities at site (Guo et al., 2013).

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The study of accident costs was discussed for centuries, where Heinrich (1931) had pioneered in this field for more than 80 years ago. Numerous studies (Heinrich, 1959;Michaud, 1995;Neville, 1998;Monnery, 1999;Dorman, 2000;LaBelle, 2000;Siegel & Shim, 2000;Corcoran, 2002;Goestsch, 2013;Asan, n.d.;Pellicer et al., 2014;Feng et a., 2015) have summarised that the actual accident costs for the company are more higher than the direct costs or insurable costs. Issues in developing a construction accident model are the accuracy in evaluating of the indirect costs. However, the direct costs, such as hospital cost, medical treatment cost and compensation cost, are usually directly priced and insured besides being monitored ( (Jallon et al., 2011).
Most construction companies and stakeholders do not systematically calculate both direct and indirect costs of accident, due to the lack of knowledge and information regarding on the compensation mechanisms involved when accidents occurred (Gavious et al., 2009). In project practice, clients, consultants and contractors have the tendency to ignore the cost of an accident, without realising the greatness of its impacts to the organisation, industry and country. This is particularly true, especially for the government projects, because of the government policies that require all projects must be insured. Most stakeholders have confidence in that most construction related items are insured and therefore there are not necessary to calculate these accident costs, which require large data collection.
Moreover, the shared economic approach in estimating benefits of safety investment assumes that accidents as undesired side effects, whereas these accident costs are assumed to be a sank costs (Oi, 1974;Thaler & Rosen, 1975). Based on this approach, a detailed safety cost from the consultants or the clients is often excluded from a contract amount. This exclusion is critical to ensure the project profitability.
Another reasons for the marginalisation of workplace accident costs by construction stakeholders consist of the difficulties in measuring, full burden work carried out by the managers, biased accounting methods and lack of quality in the safety departments (Dorman, 2000). In addition, Feng et al., (2014) and Jallon et al., (2011) revealed the quantification, evaluation and identification of many of the losses incurred in an accident are difficult as they are "hidden" costs. These "hidden" costs may be having the most significant costs incurred from that accident. They are often difficult to calculate due to complication in applying the existing models.
It is quite stressful in applying models to examine and estimate prevention costs in the construction industry. This is because, many of the research focused in the manufacturing sector, while the traditional cost models for analysing these costs are limited to recognizing and organising them. López et al., (2013) believed that the models should be 'tailor made' to each company according to conditions. Previous studies revealed that there are a several safety and health cost models from other countries, such as United Kingdom (Health and Safety Executive, 2014), Singapore (Workplace Safety and Health Institute, 2013), Australia (Safe Work Australia, 2015) and Malaysia . However, there is no study done that emphasis on the investigation of accident costs which incurred during the construction of urban rail infrastructure projects, specifically in a developing country such as Malaysia. This significant gap that is highlighted in this study is towards the development of safety cost models related with current rail infrastructure transportation trends in the country.
The objective of this study is to explore methods to calculate accident costs in the construction of urban rail infrastructure projects. The reliable evaluation of the accident costs can assist employers and workers to overcome the narrow routine economic approach adopted by them. Moreover, it also can help them to allocate the suitable items that require investment in safety measures in the strategic safety investment plan.

CALCULATION OF ACCIDENT COST APPROACHES
Accident costs are usually calculated with much uncertainty. Among the several sources of uncertainty in the calculation is in determining the right component of the costs. Several approaches by using formula calculations were proposed for quantifying the actual total cost of an accident. Table 1 shows several accident costs that were formulated by previous researchers.  Aaltonen et al., (1996) developed the Accident Consequence Tree (ACT) Method, which is based on the fault tree method for calculating the accident costs. The consequences of the accident to the injured worker, the company and the national economy were identified with the aid of the consequence tree. The ACT Method was applied to workplace accidents in 18 Finnish furniture factories of different sizes and product types.
On the other hand, the accident costs which were formulated by Hammer & Price (2001)were more general, not specific to any groups to whom the cost incurred . The accident costs were not classified into direct costs and indirect costs, which are commonly recommended by other researchers.
Wong (2008) developed the accident costs formula from the society point of view. Social costs are defined as any item that will result in the utilisation of national resources. These costs incurred for workers injury and fatal were separately formulated due to different accident severity. In addition, Tang (1997) revealed that the costs incurred by society are in broader perspective and the costs are higher than costs incurred by the contractors. Gavious et al., (2009) proposed the reliable methods in estimating the costs incurred for an accident in the industrial sector, especially in relation to loss of production. The costs contained two main cost categories, which are direct costs and indirect costs. Researchers had considered all parameters that affect costs when an accident occurred, which are from the direct costs, indirect costs, payment costs and immeasurable costs.
Nevertheless, the study from KLIACS_JKKP (2013) in Malaysia, described that the formula for total cost associated with workplace injuries is made out by the three distinct groups to whom the cost falls, namely the accident victims, the victims employers and other stakeholders. This combination contributes to improving the ease of data collection and the quantity and quality of data collected. The stakeholders are responsible during the design stage of the construction. The client needs to invest for each safety prevention cost components that stated in the bill of quantities. They also need to bear the consultant's fee based on certain charges. The relevant stakeholder, when accident occurred is the government. The government needs to pay the compensation cost to the victim. Combining the costs of these three groups gives the total cost as a whole.
The Health and Safety Executive (2014) took a different approach. The formula for workplace injuries costs in Great Britain is by combining the costs from different three groups, which are individual's costs, employer costs and government costs. The actual total costs will be summarised from these groups, who borne the costs of accident.
While, Pellicer et al., (2014) developed a mathematical model as a method that would permit employers for computing the estimation for each cost category . This estimate should be applied during the construction project design phase and execution phase at the work site. However, the model still has a few limitations.
Determining a reliable correlation between prevention costs and accidents occurred at the site is difficult. Many case studies are required to gain the reliable data to suggest such a link and this correlation must be confirmed by other data. Moreover, in its current form, the model was not specific to any project type or defines project characteristics.
In short, the literature highlights the existing accident cost formulas across the globe, but their relations to the study environment for the rail infrastructure projects are limited. Diffusion of a new cost formula could provide valuable information for future estimation when accident occurred at the MRT and LRT sites.
In order to develop a systematic accident costs calculation for urban rail infrastructure projects, all existing formulas that were developed by previous researchers were considered. By doing so, the understanding of whether the existing formula is relevant or not is used when the accident which happened were identified.
Therefore, the formula for total cost related to workplace injuries in this research is divided into employer cost, victim cost and stakeholder cost. The employer cost is further divided into two, which are direct cost and indirect cost. Direct cost is the cost that is accrued directly from the accident. The costs are typically covered by Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) and insurance company. While indirect cost is the cost item that is not covered by the worker's compensation insurance.
For the victim cost, the costs were incurred by the victim when accident happened. Usually, the cost items incurred by the victim are from the indirect costs, where it is uninsurable cost. Stakeholders cost is usually the compensation cost paid by the government agencies to the victim. This combination contributes to improving the ease of data collection and quantity and quality of data collected.
The total accident cost equation was adapted by KLIACS JKKP (2013), is given as: Hospital Cost -This cost includes transportation cost to hospital, the hospitalisation costs which includes the hospital bills, payment for person who escort the victim to the hospital, payment for the person who visits the victim at the hospital and cost of follow up treatment after the victim is admitted from the hospital.
Damage/Repair Cost -The damage to machinery, material and equipment. Commonly, an accident not only involves injuries, but also comprises the damage to machinery, material and equipment. This damage can be total lost or can be repaired. The repair cost includes salary of labour to repair and cost of spare part. The cost of cleaning to ensure the site area back to operational working is also counted in this cost component.
Fine Cost -If an accident is caused due to violations of safety procedures or even breaking the law, the company may be exposed to fines by a court or by the local authorities likes DOSH.
While, the total indirect accident cost equation is given as: Legal and Administration Cost -Consists of legal proceeding cost and the cost of administrative works to prepare the report, such as the salary and the time cost to prepare the report, including recordkeeping and filling works.
Schedule Cost -When an accident happened, a slowdown in production will affect the timetable schedule. The solution that the company will create by rescheduling the work programme. The cost to reproduce new schedule and coordinating it is accounted in this cost component.

SIMULATION OF COST ACCIDENT CALCULATION
In this section, the cost of accident was simulated to prove the viability of the generated calculation formula. The accident cost uses real data taken from one of the accident cases of MRT 1 Project. The MRT 1 Project begins from Sungai Buloh and runs through the city centre of Kuala Lumpur of before ending in Kajang. The construction of the first line commenced in July 2011 and it was start operation on 16 Dec 2016. There are 31 stations, with 51km line involved for the first MRT line Project. Six types of packages in the MRT 1 project, namely viaduct/guideway package, underground, advance, system, bus depot and depot. Since the types of work for each package in the MRT 1 construction varies, the work packages contractors (WPC) from viaduct (guideway) package were selected as a sample of the study. The reason being that the viaduct (guideway) package is the main package for the MRT 1 project, where it also covers the construction of stations.
There are 8 WPC (viaduct/guideway) in MRT 1 Project. The data was presented in the following table based on an accident occurred during the construction of the MRT 1 Project for viaduct (guideway) package which had caused injury to one foreign worker working as a labourer. The data were collected from the past accident records and accident reporting documents. Emergency Response Vehicle evacuated the injured worker to the nearest hospital. This accident was classified under Class 2 (LTI resulting in permanent disability) accident. The victim was admitted in the hospital for seven (7) days. Later, the victim obtained a medical leave for thirty (30) days due to his injury. In those four (4) weeks, the company did not recruited an outsourcing worker. The co-workers replaced the injured worker to carry out the works at site.
To investigate the accident, the Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) team members, which consists of managers, safety personnel (safety manager, safety officer, site safety supervisor) and site supervisor were appointed to participate. The investigation was a dedicated one (1) to two (2) working days, and after information was gathered from witnesses, the safety personnel will prepare the initial accident report.

STAKEHOLDERS COST
Stakeholder cost = RM13,287 + RM3,289 + RM30,400 = RM46,976  The total accident cost for the above case was estimated around RM93,106. Even in a small accident case, the indirect cost weights 72.81%. The result showed that the indirect costs were 3.73 times larger than the direct ones, yet most companies do not regularly calculate these costs. This finding further reinforced the notion that the costs of an accident incurred by the employee are related to previous studies. The Heinrich`s ratio of (1:4) between direct and indirect accident costs has frequently used in previous studies on safety-related literature (Manuele, 2011).

TOTAL ACCIDENT COST
In contrast to previous studies by Pillay and Haupt (2008), revealed that the accident cost ratio for non-fatalities is higher (i.e. 1:1.6). While the latest study from (Nur et al., 2019), found that for the permanent disability accident cases, it showed that the total direct cost and indirect cost is RM 21,668.00 and RM 42,439.00, respectively, which made up a ratio of 1:1.94. As discuss by Teo and Feng (2011) stated that there is no generally accepted ratio of direct to indirect costs. OSHA (2007) suggest that in construction industry the ratio of direct costs to indirect cost ranges from as low as 1:1.0 to as high as 1:20.0. Whereas, Choi (2006) proposed that the accident costs ratio of injuries may range from 1:2.0 to 1:20.0. Hence, the accident cost ratio is not necessarily fixed. The total accident costs incurred by this company were lost much more money than was expected.

CONCLUSION
This paper provides a cost estimation method to calculate accident costs in the construction of urban rail infrastructure projects in Malaysia. It is based on a theoretical approach that classifies these costs in two categories i.e. direct and indirect costs based on the different cost bearers, who are employer, victim and stakeholder. A method of estimating the cost components for each category is proposed even though there are a few other approaches of a model that formulates accident costs. It provides a mathematical formulation for the calculation of the different types of costs component that intervene in the accident cases.
This generation of systematic calculation of accident costs was significantly designed for the construction projects of urban rail infrastructure.