City of Edmonton trials RFID to improve job site safety
13 July, 2012
category: RFID
The City of Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) is conducting a trial of a RFID monitoring system designed to improve job site safety, according to The Edmonton Journal.
Workers at city’s Aggregate Recycling Facility are each wearing special hard hats and vests equipped with passive RFID tags. An antenna is mounted on the rear of heavy equipment, which looks for RFID tags nearby.
“It’s a monitoring system that puts more onus for safety on the operator inside the heavy equipment as opposed to just a backup beeper and a guy in a vest behind trying to get out of the way,” said Blair Buchholtz, general supervisor of the city’s aggregate recycling programs.
Over the last two years, Alberta has recorded eight fatalities involving equipment backing into people, according to provincial figures cited by the City of Edmonton. With this technology, the equipment operator in the cab knows that as soon as someone is within six meters at the back of that unit, and an alarm beeps in their cab.
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