Safety in the on shore transport sector for SME enterprises

In EU the transport sector has an incident rate of accidents at work at 40 per 1000 employees. The Danish insurance company CODAN has insured a big part of this sector concerning transport of goods on shore. The transport branch is characterized by many small enterprises of which 97 % of the enterprises in Denmark have less than 50 employees and 89 % have less than 10 employees.

The purpose of the project is to document the safety problems in the sector and to develop a strategy for a preventive intervention in transport enterprises through making successes in 6 enterprises by an intervention program. The safety problems for the employees are the activities carried out by loading, unloading or work with transport equipment carried out at many different work places.

The main safety problems are falls, heavy lifting, poor ergonomic working conditions, hits or collisions with goods, equipment or falling objects, the traffic risk situations, work with animals and finally the risk of violence and robbery. The intervention is carried out in 6 SME transport enterprises over a three year period, beginning spring 2011.

The intervention is organized together with the employers and follows their plan for integrating safety in their basically work. The intervention until now shows a relevant focus on both the risk for occupational accidents but also the risk of accidents that have consequences for the cars and the deliveries to customers.

A calculation of the internal costs of compensation of all damages and injuries shows an amount that covers 20-100 % of the enterprises´ profit for a year. The intervention in the enterprises is a simplification of safety management methods but adjusted into a new focus and awareness for the managers of small enterprises.