This paper has been published: Zhang, S., Sunindijo, R.Y., Loosemore, M., Wang, S., Gu, Y. and Li, H. (2020), "Identifying critical factors influencing the safety of Chinese subway construction projects", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-07-2020-0525. Identifying critical factors influencing the safety of Chinese subway construction projects Shang Zhang - Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China Riza Yosia Sunindijo - Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia Martin Loosemore - School of the Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia Shejiang Wang and Yajun Gu - Suzhou Rail Transit Group Co., Ltd, Suzhou, China Hongfei Li - China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co., Taiyuan, China Purpose - The image of the construction industry in China, as in many other countries, is tarnished by its poor safety record. With the rapid development of subway systems in Chinese urban areas, construction workers are being exposed to new risks which are poorly understood and managed. Subway construction projects are large scale and scattered over many construction sites, and involve numerous stakeholders and sophisticated technologies in challenging underground environments. Accident rates are high and have significant economic and social consequences for the firms and people involved. Addressing the gap in research about the safety risk in these projects, the purpose of this paper is to advance understanding of the factors influencing the safety of Chinese subway construction projects with the overall objective of reducing accident rates. Design/methodology/approach - A survey was conducted with 399 subway construction professionals across five stakeholder groups. Follow-up interviews were also conducted with five experienced experts in safety management on subway projects to validate the results. Findings - It was found that the eight most critical factors perceived by stakeholders to influence 1 safety risks on Chinese subway projects are: project management team; contractor-related factors; site underground environment; safety protection during the use of machines; safety management investment; site construction monitoring and measurement; hazard identification and communication; and use of machines in all stages. This indicates that in allocating limited project resources to improve the safety of subway projects, managers should focus on: developing safety knowledge and positive attitudes in leadership teams; formulating effective risk management systems to identify, assess, mitigate, measure and monitor safety risks on site; improving communications with stakeholders about these risks; and effectively managing plant, equipment and machinery. Originality/value - This research contributes a new multi-stakeholder perspective to the lack of safety research in Chinese subway construction projects. The research findings provide important new insights for policymakers and managers in improving safety outcomes on these major projects, producing potentially significant social and economic benefits for society and the construction industry. Keywords: Safety; Risk management; Subway project; China; Stakeholder management Introduction The subway system is considered as the primary public transportation option in major cities in China. A recent report released by the China Association of Metros (2020) showed that by the end of 2019, 40 cities in mainland China operate 208 urban rail lines with a total length of 5180.6 km. Furthermore, the addition of the urban rail line systems in 65 cities have been approved by the national and local governments, and 63 of them are in progress, with a total length of 7339.4 km. 2 This rapid development, unfortunately, also corresponds to a large number of accidents, which has significant negative economic and social consequences for the Chinese construction industry and society more broadly. For example, in 2014-2018, 108 accidents occurred which caused 142 fatalities in urban rail projects (Yu et al., 2019). Subway construction projects mainly include three parts (train parking area, stations and subway line section between stations) and involve many disciplines such as power, telecommunication and rail construction. In China, a typical subway line is about 30 km long, which is broken down into around 10 sub-projects as independent bid packages (a bid package has a total investment of less than 1 billion Yuan) to be contracted to different contractors. Given the underground nature of the construction activities, these are uniquely complex projects with a very high level of safety risk over a long period – often up to ten years. Adding to this risk, these projects also involve many hundreds of people working across many construction sites and require the collaboration of numerous stakeholders and the combination of many sophisticated technologies (Seo and Choi, 2008; Zhou et al., 2015a; Wang et al., 2017). In addition to the complicated project system, subway construction activities are usually performed deep underground with complex hydrogeological conditions, passing through dense urban areas with significant amount of structures or penetrating important urban utilities such as power system, gas piping system, as well as water supply and drainage systems (Yu et al., 2014). During the underground construction process, there are many safety risks involved, including collapse, landslide, seepage, structure failure, pipe breaks, high ground water table, toxic gas leakage, pipe blasting, poor ventilation and fire (Zou and Li, 2010). Environmental conditions, such as heavy rainfall, adverse hydrogeological conditions and soft soil layers, can increase the level of safety 3 risk, and collapse is the primary type of accident in tunnel construction, accounting for 60% of the total accidents (Qian and Lin, 2016). In addition, during underground excavation, the settlement of the ground may cause the surface subsidence of adjacent buildings or structures (Xing et al., 2016). For example, a quicksand disaster occurred during the excavation of the tunnel in the Shanghai Subway Line 4 construction project on July 1, 2003, which resulted in the collapse of 210-meter long tunnel and three buildings. On November 11, 2008, a foundation collapse happened in the Xianghu Station of Hangzhou Subway Line 1, which was considered as the worst accident in the Chinese subway construction history. This accident resulted in the loss of 21 lives and four additional injuries, with additional direct economic loss of around 49 million Yuan (Yu et al., 2014). As a result of all of the above factors, subway construction remains one of the most dangerous construction activities in China (Ding et al., 2013). While there has been a considerable amount of research into the factors influencing safety performance in the construction industry (Boadu et al., 2020), safety research in a subway construction project context is scant, despite the unique risks these projects pose to safety. The few exceptions include Wu et al. (2012) who undertook research into the organizational factors influencing the safety of subway construction projects, Wang et al. (2017) who investigated the human-related safety risk factors in subway construction, and Yu et al. (2014) who focused on the identification of subway safety factors in the preconstruction stage. While this limited research is useful, it fails to address the comprehensiveness of numerous underlying safety risk factors in subway construction and in particular the perspectives of the varied stakeholders involved, who need to collaborate in managing safety risks. There is also a paucity of research in the Chinese context which presents specific organizational and cultural 4 challenges compared to other countries (Loosemore et al., 2020). The aim of this research is to address these gaps in knowledge by exploring, from a multi-stakeholder perspective, the critical factors perceived to influence the safety of Chinese subway construction projects. This research is significant in addressing an important gap in safety research and in informing more effective measures to improve the safety performance of Chinese subway construction projects. Literature review As noted above, in recent years, a small number of academics have begun to explore safety management of subway construction projects. Zhou et al. (2012) developed a subway construction incident database (SCID), which can be used as a qualitative tool in identifying precursor safety risk factors and as a quantitative tool in safety evaluation and management. Ding et al. (2012a) illustrated the safety risk identification system (SRIS) of subway construction projects based on construction drawings, which can be used in the preconstruction risk assessment stage to identify potential safety hazards and achieve dynamic risk early warning and control. They categorized the risk factors into four types: project features, construction technology, hydrological geology and construction environment. Yu et al. (2014) investigated the safety factors in the preconstruction stage of Chinese subway construction projects to identify critical safety factors and measure the ranking consistency among the main stakeholders, including clients, consultants, designers, contractors and engineering consultants (Jianli in Chinese). They found five critical influencing factors, including safety attitude, construction site safety, government supervision, market restrictions and task