Improving Health & Safety In Construction With Two-Way Radios
A Chat-Com digital radio network can provide substantial health and safety benefits to an organisation, above and beyond traditional operations and logistics. These benefits include:
- Lone Working
- Security / Panic
- Emergency ‘All-Call’ Broadcast
- GPS and Indoor Location
Lone Worker Benefits
A ‘Lone Worker’ function gives peace of mind for those staff members who are working on their own in potentially dangerous situations.
The radio can be set-up to periodically alert the user to press a button, to inform a supervisor that they are safe. If a button press isn’t detected for a set period of time (e.g. 30 mins) the radio will alert the user to press a button. The user doesn’t have to press a specific button, any interaction with the radio will reset the timer back to 30 mins.
If a button press is not forthcoming, the radio will alert a supervisor that there is a lone worker alarm, and provide the ID of the radio in question. A supervisor can then investigate and take appropriate action.
Security / Panic Button Benefits
The ‘panic’ function allows a radio user to press a single button on the radio for 5 secs to go into a ‘panic’ state.
This will alert a supervisor that the radio ID is in panic mode so that they can investigate the situation.
This is useful in emergency situations where a radio user feels it is unsafe to talk into the radio, but wants to covertly alert a colleague that there may be an issue.
A team member who has suffered an injury to their mouth while working and is unable to speak, can also press the panic button to alert a supervisor that there is an issue, without being able to verbally communicate.
Emergency ‘All-Call’ Benefits
The ‘All-Call’ feature has been established to allow a single user to communicate to every radio user across the site with a single button push, for use in an emergency.
With a single button press on a predefined channel (e.g Channel 16) a Supervisor can broadcast to all radio users by means of an “All Call” in case of Emergency, evacuation or important announcement.
This means all radio users will receive the announcement, regardless of what channel their radio is currently set to.
Evacuation messages can then be transmitted to all team members on site, removing any ambiguity or confusion.
This type of feature has only been available since the deployment of digital ‘Capacity Plus’ systems from Motorola. It wasn’t possible on older analogue networks.
GPS and Indoor Location Benefits
The location of your staff and assets can have an important role to play in the logistical management of your operation on site.
GPS can be enabled on the Motorola digital network, using the DP4000 series radios, and provide the location of each radio on street level mapping, both externally and internally.
Aside from the obvious logistical benefits of managing your team members on site, you can get their position during evacuation procedures or fire drills etc. It would also combine with the ability to see the location of a team member who has alerted the panic or lone worker alarm on their radio.
Talk to us about your construction site project communications
If you’d like to learn more about how a Chat-Com radio network can improve your on site health and safety, please call us for a free consultation. You can reach us on 01747 898 008, write to us at [email protected] or fill in this online form: