Lafarge Tarmac’s National Contracting division is rolling out innovative new technology designed to provide greater protection for lone highways workers. The two companies formed a 50:50 joint venture in January.

The system is claimed to be a first for the highways industry and has been developed in partnership with Reliance Protect. It works by providing real time monitoring and tracking of workers that might be required to work alone on site such as plant delivery drivers and equipment fitters.

Each lone worker will be given an armband which has built in GPS technology that relays where staff are to a control centre which is manned around the clock.

When arriving on site the operative will log into the system, advising the call centre of their exact location and the time they expect to be on site. If their armband does not detect movement for more than 180 seconds the device will vibrate continuously and if not acknowledged by the operative, it will send an emergency alert to a central monitoring centre to activate emergency support.

The armband also features a panic alarm which can be activated if a site operative feels threatened by the public. When this alarm is activated the device also listens and captures everything that takes place during an incident so that the trained monitoring staff in the control centre can respond appropriately depending on the severity of the situation. This can include calling out the emergency services, alerting colleagues and archiving recordings as evidence for any legal action.

Lafarge Tarmac’s launch of the system follows an extensive trial across Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

The company had previously operated an ‘accompanied worker scheme’, which required fitters and plant delivery drivers to work in pairs. 

Commenting on the new technology Lafarge Tarmac National Contracting’s managing director Paul Fleetham said: “This technology sets a new benchmark for lone worker safety and ensures that we are in constant communication with our employees and can immediately deploy support if necessary.”

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