This project was born from my desire to improve the safety of workers in Singapore who commute between work sites by riding in the backs of truck beds.
Latest Update: I filed for a patent on February 2nd, 2024 so that I can commence discussions with fabricators, industry associations, and the Singapore's government regarding bringing my invention to life. The patent descriptions can be found here.
I was made aware of this problem when I read an August 2023 news story about 2 road accidents that injured 37 construction workers who were riding in the back of lorries (open-back trucks).
In Singapore, migrant workers form the backbone of our construction and marine shipyard industries, with nearly half a million working in these 2 sectors. What led to that number of injuries is that workers sitting in the back of a lorry are exempted from having to wear seat belts under the Singapore Road Traffic Act. Construction companies often use lorries for the dual purpose of transporting materials and their workers. However, this poses a great safety concern. With the recent accidents on the road, activist groups had begun to pressure the government to require business to use buses to transport workers. However, businesses pushed back, citing the demands as unreasonable and economically not feasible with their already thin margins. There is fear that a strict ruling could result in the potential closure of scores of small medium sized businesses and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Pointing to the very low incidence of accidents involving lorries, the government ultimately made a few small changes to the law, such as requiring lorry drivers to have a buddy to keep the driver alert. But this has not really addressed prevailing safety concerns.
Having undertaken an internship with a design thinking consultancy, Design Sojourn, I had the toolbox to apply the framework of discover, define, ideate, design and iterate. The process helped me to fully analyze the issue at hand to deliver the best solution.
In addition to secondary research, I interviewed a Road Safety Equipment Expert and a few business owners in the construction and marine shipyard industries. It became apparent that news articles did not explain how the small medium sized enterprises relied on lorries to perform the dual function of transporting equipment/materials as well as workers, sometimes simultaneously multiple times in a day.
The solutions proposed by the activist group were indeed exorbitant for small businesses to implement. In the meantime, some designers proposed specialty chairs for lorries but did not fully consider the practicality of the solutions.
The stakeholders in this issue all want different things. The workers want to keep their jobs and are not always aware of the dangers of riding in the back of lorries. The activists believe that the lives of the workers are not valued enough and want to raise the safety standard. The business owners are torn between taking better care of their workers and the ability to shoulder high costs that may force them to close shop.
A true solution to this issue needs to meet the following criteria:
Improve Safety: there must be some form of safety harness
Cost Effective: the cost of implementation of the solution must not be prohibitive
Flexibility of Use: the vehicle must continue to serve the function of transporting both equipment/goods and people
Ease of Use: the solution must be easy to use on a daily basis
My solution involves the mounting of modular collapsible safety seats on the open bed of lorries. Each seat comes with a safety harness that will significantly reduce the risk of injuries in road accidents. The modular single seat design means it is scalable to different sizes of lorries and trucks. When collapsed the installation raise the bed height by a mere 80 mm, allowing the lorry to serve it's function to transport goods and equipment. When raised the seat height is 190mm, which improves seating comfort. Built of sturdy steel construction, the seats are durable whether opened or closed.
The captions accompanied with each image describe specific details of the design. Much thought went into the details to make the seat relatively easy to fabricate and assemble.
Depending on the size of the trucks, a certain number of seats can be added. In a large lorry, pictured above, an estimated 16 seats could be installed. In the smaller more common 14ft lorries in Singapore, around 6 seats could be installed facing forward, and this number increases to 10 seats when facing sideways (though this is less safe). To maintain a flat bed for the truck when the seats are collapsed, additional structure would have to be installed between the gaps of my seat design, but this is inexpensive and should not take much time.
The first thing I did when I started working on this project was to dive into the numbers behind the bus solution proposed by the activist groups. A new 11-seater bus costs $130k+ SGD and a driver’s salary is about $36K SGD/year. Given that high startup cost and the need to hire a separate driver for only transporting workers, it is understandable that business are not willing to accept this proposal. With their current set up, a lorry can be flexibly used to transport materials and/or workers.
There is a concern of overcrowding these systems as scaling public transportation would involve significant costs. Further, grimy shoes and clothing from passengers who have been performing construction work would increase maintenance cost of the public networks currently used by students and office workers. Alternatively, worksites would have to provide shower facilities. Currently, the Singapore government bans companies from moving migrant workers through public transportation networks.
Since I began to work on this project, other designers have gotten involved too. A range of different ideas have been presented from a stackable chair design, to ergonomic seats with good back support, to proper chairs with belts holding them in place.
However, my design is superior in a few key aspects: safety and convenience. First, as my chair design is securely mounted to the bed of the truck, it does not move around. The other chair designs either have a complicated mounting system or a rigging network since they need to be removable. My chairs also include a lap seatbelt, while the other designs are simply seats.