Using Improved Principal Component Analysis to Explore Construction Accident Situations from the Multi-Dimensional Perspective: A Chinese Study

The improvement of the macro-level accident situation in the Chinese construction industry is currently an urgent task for the government due to the high accident rate. This study intends to use improved principal component analysis to explore the accident situations in the Chinese construction industry from a multi-dimensional perspective, aiming at providing targeted direction on the improvement of the accident situation for the government. Six composite indicators that can quantify the accident situation are firstly selected based on a wide review of the literature and interviews with safety experts, with the original data collected from China institutions. The classical principal component analysis is then improved to examine the correlations between indicators, and further to evaluate accident situations in China provinces. Finally, the features of accident situations are explored and analyzed from a multi-dimensional perspective. The findings show that the improved principal component analysis can retain more dispersion degree information of the original data. Meanwhile, three principal components including the accident frequency, trend, and severity were extracted to quantify the accident situation, and a hierarchical indicator system for the comprehensive evaluation of the accident situation was constructed to deeper understand multi-dimensional characteristics of China’s accident situations. Furthermore, there exist great regional differences of accident situations in Chinese provinces. From the overall perspective, the accident situation shows a declining trend from the western backward region to the highly developed eastern coastal region. This study provides a multi-dimensional perspective for the government to formulate safety regulations and improve the accident situation.