Virtual Reality Applied to Road Construction Sites: Designing and Testing a Virtual Learning Environment

Nowadays, workplace safety is essential in many countries and across all productive sectors, especially in the construction sector. Among the most significant obstacles are the workers’ mindset, the cost of simulating the actual working condi-tions, and the time required to teach all activities properly. To this end, the presented research reports the steps and results of the collaboration with Virtual Safety Lab, which is dedicated to developing a virtual reality environment to teach the safety activities for the construction and maintenance of road construction sites. The imple-mented virtual reality environment is committed to mobile construction sites, specifi-cally reviewing, integrating, and placing road signage in the work activities conducted in the presence of vehicular traffic and in accordance with Italian national regulations. The Virtual Reality environment comprises three modules, one theoretical and the other practical. In this manner, using the first modules, the workers are familiarised with virtual environments and learn the meaning of signage and safety regulations. Then, the other two modules consider the best practices and mobile construction site procedures. Training through the modules developed enables users to safely learn the operating methods necessary for the safe management of mobile road construction sites. In addition, the system may allow the optimisation of processes and decisions by training users in best practices that are useful in reducing costs and creating a safer and less stressful work environment.