Work risk-prevention procedures in highway management and maintenance contracts

Following the great focus on and investment into roads by European administrations in recent years, a new area of employment has arisen wherein the majority of activities relating to the maintenance and operation of infrastructures have been outsourced. The participation of private companies, the organization of the various contracts and maintenance services, and infrastructure users' increasing demand for better quality services, mean that awareness needs to be raised about the subject of work risk prevention. The authors, having carried out a comparative analysis of Spain and England (countries that represent models in terms of infrastructure management and financing) present the results that were obtained, paying particular attention to the worker–user–safety triad, which determines all the preventative action and measures that are taken. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 17: 229–244, 2007.