Globally, the number of people killed and injured annually on the world’s roads is believed to be nearly 1.25 million people and up to 50 million people respectively [1]. In the year 2010, a Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020) was proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations [2]. The buck, however, does not stop with the motorists and pedestrians alone but also essentially with the contractors who construct the road. At global level, commendable strides have been made by including road safety in the Sustainable Development Goals: target 3.6, which aims to halve the number of road injuries and deaths by 2020; and target 11.2, which aims to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all by 2030 [2].

Safety in construction has been of so much focus during implementation stage yet ignoring the outcome in the post-delivery stage. According to Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) safety report, integrating systems for safety into the ordinary commercial operations has no indications of the ability for accident alleviation and risk management [3]. The International Finance Corporation notes that the contractors should be asked to provide details including past Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) performance; status of Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS); number and qualifications of Environmental, Social, Health and Safety (ESHS) personnel; and last but not least is the occupational safety and health procedures and controls [4].

Documentation quantity and level of information and detail that are requested to contractors shall be commensurate to the scope of work and other specific features that the contractor is being prequalified against. This is deemed important not only to ensure safety standards are adhered to during construction phase but also to contribute to future safety expected during operational phase. In most cases, safety is normally not keenly implemented. For example, Emeasoba and Ogbuefi revealed that like in several developing economies, Nigerian statutory provisions, with capacity to ensure the assumption and operationalization of systems for safety and health management by concerns, appear to be deficient [5]. This phenomenon leads to inadequate attentiveness to critical safety and health matters among construction workers in Nigeria. In addition, concerns appear incapable or unwilling to offer sufficient attentiveness to safety and health management. As a result, safety and health standards, operational capacity and corporate reputation of the construction industry in Nigeria have been affected.

The continuous evaluation of project execution in regard to the design schedules, and the utilization of infrastructure, inputs, as well as services by the beneficiaries of project, is called “project monitoring”. For example, Ogendi, et al. concluded that pedestrian safety ought to be of central attention in any road safety effort in Nairobi City County [6]. Accordingly, planners of urban road safety should embrace prevailing cost-effective responses to assure the pedestrian safety, including area-wide calming of traffic to control the motor vehicle speeds at 30 km/h, provision of pedestrian sidewalks, residential area traffic calming, as well as the strict operationalization of traffic rules. Additionally, Griffin and Neal posited that before engaging a contractor in construction work, the contract manager would need to be satisfied, both about the competence of the contractor to carry out the work safely, and their own competence that is, knowledge and experience to reach a sound judgment about the competence of a contractor [7]. Arrangements will need to be put in place with a main contractor for the assessment and management of any sub-contractors and the principles set out in this guidance may be used. Australian Safety Transport Bureau therefore points out that having some safety management systems in place may produce the following [3]: incidents and accidents alleviation; reduction in overt and covert costs; recognition of safety need by travelling pedestrian; reduction in insurance premiums; as well as evidence of due diligence in investigations relating to legal or regulatory safety.

Practically, properly designed as well as maintained roads are significant for the safety of roads. According to Manyara, whenever the government communicates concerns relating to Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs), roads are infrequently cited as the cause [8]. Instead, the government normally points an accusing finger at the driver, the vehicle’s mechanical condition, the weather or even other set of factors. Improperly designed roads, such as steep slopes, narrow roads, uneven, as well as sharp turns or curves and poorly maintained roads with potholes and limited road signs make road users susceptible to accidents. Normally, dangerous overtaking is caused by the absence of warning signs or even centerline markers. Due to improperly constructed and maintained roads, mobility is constrained, vehicle operating costs rise unnecessarily, accident rates go up, isolation is augmented, poverty rises, health is put at risk [9]; an experience that affects urban dwellers as well. For instance, in a report released by National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA), by 2019, the number of people who died and injured on roads in Kenya were 3053 and 10,147 respectively [10]. In 2018, lower figures were recorded where 2689 died and 8569 people got injured. This is a clear indication that something imperative must be done in terms of road safety to avert these fatalities. In Nairobi alone, 373 people were killed on the roads.

The Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) enumerated some of the issues and challenges regarding safety and security of roads and transport system in the city. For example, there is need for capacity building of motorized drivers due to lack of security tolerance for pedestrians; this is according to the report by the said NCCG. Design of roads a lot of times does not take care of the needs of children and other vulnerable road users. People with disabilities find it difficult to negotiate the set infrastructure. No-functional street-lighting, improper and insecure location of the footbridges. Safety rules are weak as everyone tries to be alive on the road. The motor cyclists do not wear protective gears, with unsuitable bumps for the cyclists. Traffic snarl-ups occasionally make motorized drivers as well as cyclists to occupy the walkways. Due to the haphazard crossing by the pedestrians and congestion by the motorcycle taxis, confusion abounds near markets, with unmarked bikeways occasionally occupied by motorbikes [11]. This raises doubts on effectiveness of contractors’ capacity evaluation in tender award, hence, the need to study the contractors’ capacity and road construction infrastructural project performance in Nairobi County. The Permanent Secretary (PS) for infrastructure in Kenya noted that most of the roads within Nairobi are in the hands of careless contractors who have failed to ensure standards are met and that there was need to entrench a performance-based system of contracts to weed out contractors who do shoddy work [12]. Kahongeh noted that the four-lane Outer Ring Road “lacked footbridges, walk ways, cycle paths, lighting, signage and landscaping when it was completed in 2017. The contractor, SinoHydro Tianjin Engineer, would later erect 11 footbridges along the 13-kilometre stretch after protests from road users,” [10]. It is against this backdrop that the objective of current study sought to examine how contractors’ safety record could be influencing road performance in Nairobi County in Kenya when it comes to post-delivery of road infrastructural projects. The null hypothesis of the study is: contractors’ safety record does not significantly influence performance of road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County, Kenya.

Safety in construction industry is vital to contribute to road performance. To adjust the safety performance of personnel, an array of activities is undertaken by safety practitioners as well as management. Some of those activities include safety communication; safety training; and safety rules and procedures. Hall and Holt posit that safety performance is employees’ personal conduct through which their own safety as well as that of colleagues would be assured [13]. Two dimensions of safety therefore emerge, namely: compliance with safety safeguards, including the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), adherence to safety rules and procedures, and safety participation, including voluntary participation in such activities, including meetings for safety strategy. Many studies have demonstrated that motivation and employees’ knowledge positively impacts on safety performance. This argument has been emphasized by Heinrich, Peterson and Roos in the below comment:

“Despite the notorious reputation of the construction industry for poor health and safety, project financiers almost never thought of it as their duty to facilitate the safety and health practices of suppliers where appropriate at the site. Therefore, upon occurrence of an incident, it could significantly impact budgetary as well as programmatic performance, despite all other parameters being in place. It was established that the procedures for the choice of suppliers were imperative for health and safety assurance, given that project sponsors never concerned themselves with the matter, as long as work was on course.” [14]

The circumstances are even worse in the developing country contexts such as Iran, being an outcome of numerous dynamics, including absence of rules and regulations, mediocre inspection by government machinery, unskilled labour, poor motivation of employees, time and economic pressures, as well as lack of an integrated system for accident recording and reporting [15]. Others such as Kartam and Bouz discovered that weak systems for accident recording and reporting are a conduit for hiding the pervasive safety gaps [16].

The culture of keenness to safety issues has also been said to critically set the attitude and the significance of organizational safety [17]. Several other factors affect injury rates over and above the OSHA regulatory activities [18]. The factors determining OSHA performance can be analyzed by dissecting the process into three key elements, namely: compliance behavior, enforcement related aspects; and the sufficiency of standards to address safety output. The three components are further broken down into: safety practices and investments by the employer; on-site training of the worker on safety; integrated management of the site; the role played by the unions as well as off-site activities; technological effects; and practices related to the actual work. In addition, the negative economic as well as social outcomes of accidents are undeniable. Others such as Diugwu, Baba and Egila examined the non-material accident costs, including pain and suffering, and loss of quality of life [19]. Accordingly, they reported that the said costs comprised approximately thirty percent of direct costs of accident.

Consequently, the emergent key index has been “safety”, alongside others such as the triangle of time, as well as quality, in the appraisal of construction project success; hence the undeniable need for its improvement [20] [21]. A research by Jannadi and Bu-Khamsin focused on safety determinants in the Saudi Arabian context [22]. The research methodology was as follows: 1) literature review was undertaken for the identification of variables; 2) a list of variable dimensions and their respective indicators was developed; 3) expert interviews were then undertaken to enhance construct validity; 4) a research questionnaire based on variables and dimension indicators that were identified was developed; 5) data was the collected; 6) data analysis was undertaken; and 7) a summary of the results was developed [22]. The said study subjected the industrial contractors to research questionnaires and a formal interview with each contractor’s official in charge of construction safety in the Saudi Arabian Eastern Province. The survey intended to collect data relating to the key determinants of industrial contractors’ safety performance.

A total of 28 concerns were surveyed because they met the criterion of involvement with large-scale industrial construction activities the said province [22]. Twenty key factors as well as eighty-five minor-factors were identified as determinants of construction contractors’ safety performance. The major determinants in this regard were: housekeeping and site planning; signaling and barricades; disaster and emergency preparation and planning; welfare facilities; crane and lifting equipment; signage, concrete and related framework; and cutting and welding; chemical handling. The other factors included electrical equipment; transportation handling, and disposal of risky material as well as waste; equipment for personal protection; prevention of fire; excavation, scaffolding and ladders; transportation; trenching and shoring; hand and power tools; ionization radiation, mechanical equipment; and involvement of management.

The respondents concurred on the priority listing of the foregoing safety factors [22]. The data were utilized for the identification of the key and sub-factors affecting the construction contractor’s safety performance. The scale of significance attached to the major and sub-factors was arrived at based on their relative priority. Each item in the questionnaire comprised five options, via: 4 points for “very high impact”; 3 points for “high impact”; 2 points for “moderately high impact”; 1 point for “low impact”; and 0 (zero) points for “no impact”. It was concluded that each of the variables under review were the most significant determinants of the safety performance of industrial construction contractor. In this regard, there was a total concurrence on three main factors, namely: engagement of management; protective equipment; and emergency/disaster preparation and planning [22]. This conclusion was driven by the reported highest impact and weights (6.0) of each of the said determinants. Hence, engagement of the management is critical to any successful safety program; this is in addition to personal protective equipment as well as emergency or disaster preparation and planning.

Some contractors have not been keen on observing regulations in the construction industry. Emeasoba and Ogbuefi conducted a study on level of awareness and effective regulation in the context of Nigerian construction industry [5]. A random distribution of questionnaires was done, without regard to the enterprise size band. The objective here was to avoid a skewed analysis through acquisition of a representative view on each item. This being an economical sampling strategy without losing the desirable attributes of probability sampling. Out of the 495 questionnaires dispatched, a total of 312 were returned comprising 271 and 41 valid and invalid questionnaires, respectively; representing 69% response rate. An analysis of the valid responses indicated that 91% were of the opinion that poor safety and health impacted operations of their businesses, the balance was of the contrary opinion. Specifically, 74% reported that poor safety and health standard impacted their corporate reputation, with the balance expressing the contrary opinion.

Overall, approximately 55.9% of the respondents reported that they had no safety and health policies in place. Therefore, despite several construction contractors being probably aware of the safety and health impacts of their activities, they still had no safety and health policy in place [5]. Summarily, the research concluded that health and safety management constraints, inadequate support, asset limitations, lack of knowledge of details as well as implications, and management non-commitment impacted the safety and health strategies.

In regard to compliance measurement, it has been asserted that compliance with standards of OSHA by construction contractors is only observable by the time of actual OSHA inspection by some authorized OSHA personnel on-site [18]. The inspector identifies non-compliant on-site activities and ranks them according to the degree of severity. This inspection procedure would provide an objective measure of the degree of compliance with health and safety safeguards.

The construction industry is said to rely on the contractors’ effort to significantly reduce accidents on construction sites voluntarily. A study by Feng on the effects of contractors’ safety investments on safety performance identified the factors influencing the effects of safety investments on safety performance [9]. The researcher adopted a regression and correlation research design to be able to fill the gap. Data collection tools involved the use of structured interviews, archival data and questionnaires. The study targeted a total of 47 completed building projects. The main data analysis techniques were bivariate correlation and moderated regression techniques. The findings revealed that basic safety investments effect on safety performance did not hold constant considering other prevailing project conditions. In reference to Feng study, basic safety investments showed a stronger positive effect on accident prevention where a higher safety culture level was being exercised and also project hazard level had been put in place [9]. This implies that despite a contractor’s keenness to more protection and safer environment, safety culture has a significant role to play in construction projects. Although this study was focused on building projects, the current study specifically focused on road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County in Kenya.

The study embodied a pragmatic mixed method approach by employing descriptive survey research design and correlation design. Mixed method approach refers to the use of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies [26]. The target population comprised of road contractors and public service drivers totaling to 460 from which we got a sample of 210 using Krejcie and Morgan table.

The drivers are plying Outering Road and Eastern Bypass Road in Nairobi County, Kenya. Stratified sampling was used whereby target population was categorized in strata that comprised of: 48 consulting senior engineers and a similar number of 48 managing directors in consulting engineering firms; 68 senior engineers and 68 managing directors in construction companies (as per the National Construction Authority “NCA” records); 95 Public Service Vehicles (PSV) drivers plying Outer-Ring Road and 133 drivers plying Eastern. PSV in Kenya are also referred to as “Matatu”. Using Morgan and Krejcie Tableof 1970, a sample size of 210 was obtained. Thereafter, a proportionate sampling technique helped to arrive at the right sample size in each stratum. Simple random was thus finally used to determine the respondents who took part in the study during distribution of questionnaires. A pilot study was conducted to improve on the validity and reliability [27] [28]. Content validity and construct validity was preferred in this study. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient. Both questionnaires and interview schedules were used to gather data with a Likert scale set. The Likert scale is the widely used variation of the summated rating scale, which means it contains statements that express the degree to which a person agrees or disagrees with a statement expressed in either favor or opposition of a view of object of interest [29]. In total, 153 (72.8%) of questionnaires were returned out the total 210 that were distributed. Descriptive data was analyzed and presented in frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation. Qualitative data gathered was analyzed thematically. Inferential statistics was performed to find out how the predictor correlated with the outcome. Simple linear regression was therefore done using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). To be able to observe the ethical issues, a letter of authority was sought from the government of Kenya through National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI). Questionnaires were distributed to the road contractor whereas the interview schedules were given to the Public Service Vehicles (PSVs) drivers also referred to as Matatu drivers in Kenya.

This section presents the results on respondents’ background information, the descriptive analysis, the correlation and inferential statistics.

The study objective was to examine how contractors’ safety record influences performance of road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County, Kenya. The null hypothesis that was tested in this regard was that contractors’ safety record does not significantly influence performance of road construction infrastructural projects. The results were: R = 0.657, R² = 0.431, B = 0.359, t = 10.703, F (1,151) = 114.558, p = 0.000 < 0.05. The null hypothesis was rejected based on the results, and it was concluded that contractors’ safety record significantly influences performance of road construction infrastructural projects. The results showed that contractors’ safety record explained 43.1% of performance of road construction infrastructural projects. Aspects of contractors’ safety record that should be observed are thus listed as follows: safety policy management system, insurance policy, compliance behavior, adequacy of standards in addressing safety outcomes and finally certification in OSHA.

Evaluation of contractors prior to being awarded a tender is very critical to establish their ability to do the job. The findings show that contractors’ safety record explains to a total of 43.1% of performance of road construction infrastructural. This indicates that contractors’ safety record should be considered in the criteria system of contractor selection to assist in improving road performance. The past of the contractor’s adherence to safety aspects such as footbridges, pedestrians’ walkways, proper use of road signage need to be checked prior to awarding road construction tenders so as to eliminate undeserving contractors.

A similar study may be carried out on building construction using the same predictor and outcome variable. Since this study focused on Nairobi County, generalization of the findings to other regions or counties may not be feasible and therefore future studies need to be based in other geographical areas within Kenya. Future studies should find out the contribution of contractors’ safety ability when combined with other evaluation criteria such as management ability, technical ability, and contractors’ safety record.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Mushori, J., Rambo, C.M., Wafula, C.M. and Matu, J. (2021) Evaluating Contractors’ Safety Record and Its Influence on Performance of Road Infrastructural Projects. World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 9, 203-228. https://doi.org/10.4236/wjet.2021.92015