From fragmented data to unified construction safety knowledge: A process-based ontology framework for safer work

Effective knowledge management in construction safety is essential yet challenging. Despite emerging technologies to collect valuable data automatically, it continues to rely on manual input. The heterogeneity of data sources in construction makes it additionally difficult, resulting in a high number of incidents due to late changes in the design. Presented is a unified ontology for construction safety named UNOCS that shares safety knowledge between stakeholders during the construction processes. The UNOCS ontology follows the Linked Open Terms methodology and integrates established concepts, ensuring interoperability with other domain-specific knowledge for multiple use cases: (1) hazard and mitigation planning, (2) conformance checking and control, and (3) incident logging. UNOCS was evaluated through automatic consistency checks, criteria-based assessment, and task-based evaluation. The ontology meets the defined requirements and represents safety-related concepts. Implemented in a machine-readable format, it enables reasoning and seamless knowledge transfer between mitigation planning, safety inspections, and incident reporting. • UNOCS is a formal and comprehensive ontology for construction safety knowledge. • Serving as a unified data model integrating heterogeneous information. • Supporting hazard and mitigation planning, inspection, and incident logging. • Integrating existing ontologies for construction to maintain data interoperability. • Performing a rigorous evaluation covering three methods in two realistic case studies.