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What if someone walks in without a helmet and nobody sees it?

He walked in without a helmet

It is 08:15 at the site gate. The concrete truck arrives, and behind it, on foot, the technician from the formwork company. He waves at the gatekeeper, who is signing the truck’s delivery note, and walks through. He has his jacket on and his helmet in his hand. Nobody says anything. Forty minutes later he is standing under the crane jib, on the phone, helmet still hanging from his arm.

11 cameras across 8 sectors

This is how you ask for it

«Tell me if someone reaches the turnstile without a helmet, and tell me there, at the gate, not once they have been inside for half an hour.»

A spanner falling from the second floor slab gives no warning. And when it hits somebody who was there without a helmet, the problem is not only medical: the site stops, the inspector arrives, and you have to prove the access control for a visitor who walked in behind a truck. That is the day you discover that the gate record is a signature in a notebook, and that nobody knows what time he came in or where he went.

You decide once

It is decided once, at the gate. If someone crosses the turnstile or the pedestrian entrance onto the site without a helmet, then the alert appears in the gatehouse with the camera open, so they can be stopped there. The organisation says where the helmet zone begins, at what hours and what happens with visitors. The repetitive part is IRIS: watching that gate three hundred days a year, including while the gatekeeper is signing delivery notes.

A helmet does not protect you from your boss. It protects you from a spanner falling off the second floor slab. And the person who walks in without one is almost never the site crew, who have had theirs on since seven: it is the visitor who is here for an hour. The technician, the supplier, the sales rep, the one who does not know the place and does not think the place could fall on him.

The problem is not a missing rule. The rule is written, it is on the sign at the gate and it is signed at check-in. The problem is that it gets checked at the gate, and at the gate one person is signing delivery notes, raising the barrier and answering the phone. Half an hour later, that alert is worth nothing. It is only good for a telling-off, and telling-offs do not stop a falling spanner.

IRIS watches that gate all the time and alerts at the threshold, while the person is still three steps from the gatehouse and can turn round for a helmet. It is an alert that does not feel like a sanction: it feels like somebody warning you. The same sentence works for the technical corridor of a water plant, the walkway to a port’s fuel tanks and the high-voltage bay of a substation. The gate changes; the idea does not.

What changes

Before, the warning came when somebody bumped into the visitor inside the site, half an hour late and already in a scolding tone. Now it arrives at the threshold, when the person is three steps from the gatehouse and can turn round for a helmet. The outcome changes and so does the tone: it is not a sanction, it is somebody warning you. And the visitor is grateful to be told before rather than after.

Where we have seen it

  • Mid-afternoon, at the door of the chemical dosing room. A person in street clothes — t-shirt, jeans, no hard hat, no vest, no goggles — steps over the threshold and inside. An operator in a white hard hat and hi-vis vest raises a hand to stop them. Beyond the fence stand the flammables cabinet, the drums and the totes; on the ground, the painted band that marks where the area begins. IRIS sees that somebody has gone in without the area kit, not who they are.

    CAM-317Into the dosing room without the area kit

    «Tell me if anybody goes into the dosing room without a hard hat, a vest and goggles.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • A wide street in the afternoon: cars and a bus on the roadway, a green cycle lane down the middle and a pavement with café terraces on the right. Nothing unusual is happening; the city is simply moving.

    CAM-41Boulevard: cars, bikes and people

    «Also tell me how many people ride past without a helmet, so I know whether we need a road-safety campaign.»

    See this camera →The city

  • The technical walkway of a treatment plant, between the aeration basin and the tanks. A man in a shirt is coming down the path towards the camera, with no helmet and no hi-vis. At the far end of the same walkway three workers stand by the handrail in vests and helmets, and on the right another operator in a white helmet is working on the pumps. The basin is aerating right beside the path.

    CAM-152No helmet in the plant walkway

    «Tell me if anyone walks into the technical area without a helmet and a hi-vis vest, whether they work here or not.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • Mid-morning on the quay. A man in a dark shirt and jeans walks past the fence with the restricted-area plate and keeps going towards the diesel tank and the railway track. He is wearing neither helmet nor vest. A few metres away, on the other side of the yellow railing, two workers are at it with helmets and hi-vis vests. IRIS sees both things at once: the missing kit, and a boundary drawn on the image being crossed.

    CAM-446He walks past the sign to the diesel tank with no helmet

    «Tell me if anyone enters the fuel area or crosses towards the track without a helmet and a vest.»

    See this camera →Ports

  • Afternoon shift in the sorting hall. At the front belt station there is a person in a dark T-shirt, no helmet, no gloves and no hi-vis, leaning over the material and picking up a bottle bare-handed among glass, cans and film. Around them, seven colleagues work with helmet, ear defenders, mask, vest and gloves, and the supervisor is checking the line with a tablet. IRIS sees a station worked by somebody whose kit is missing.

    CAM-438No helmet, no gloves, bare hand on the belt

    «Tell me if somebody starts sorting on the belt without helmet, gloves or hi-vis.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • Mid-morning at the settling basins. Two operators are on the walkway between two tanks. One is kneeling, working a small valve right on the edge; the other is watching from a metre behind, leaning on the handrail. Both are in T-shirts: no hard hat and no hi-vis vest. To their right the water lies open, even if the walkway has a handrail. By the entrance stands the mandatory-equipment sign. IRIS compares what they are wearing with what that zone requires: hard hat and vest.

    CAM-413No hard hat, no hi-vis, right at the edge of the open tank

    «Tell me if anyone works at the edge of a basin without a hard hat or a vest.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • Mid-morning. A man crosses the gravel of the yard, between the transformer and the switchgear, and reaches out towards the cells. He is wearing a T-shirt and jeans. No helmet, no face shield, no gloves, no arc-rated clothing. Beside him, blue arcs are visible on the switchgear. Here nobody has to decide how many people are too many: one person without protection at that distance is already the incident.

    CAM-347In a T-shirt and jeans beside the live cells

    «Tell me if anyone enters the high-voltage zone without a helmet, gloves and protective clothing, even if they are only walking through.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • The pedestrian gate of a city construction site, seen from above: the control cabin, the full-height turnstile and, on the hoarding, the sign with the helmet and vest pictograms. Two men are waiting at the turnstile: one has a white helmet and a yellow hi-vis vest on; the one beside him is in a white T-shirt, bare-headed and with no vest. A third worker is walking up along the pavement, this one kitted out. Behind the hoarding you can see the concrete frame, the scaffolding and the rubble skip.

    CAM-51Walking into the site with no helmet

    «Tell me if somebody turns up at the turnstile with no helmet or no vest, and tell me there, at the gate, not once he has been inside the site for half an hour.»

    See this camera →The building site

  • A flatbed lorry is being unloaded with a lorry loader crane. A pack of concrete slabs hangs from the hook at mid height. A man in a maroon shirt, no helmet and no hi-vis vest, walks past the front of the load, a couple of steps away from it. Up on the bed, the worker who slung the pack is wearing his kit.

    CAM-55No helmet inside the lifting zone

    «While the lorry is being unloaded, tell me if anyone steps inside the crane's working radius — even if they're only passing through.»

    See this camera →The building site

  • The inside of a large construction site, the ground churned up with tyre ruts. A group of people is walking across it: the first has a white helmet and a hi-vis vest on, and the two behind him are bare-headed with nothing reflective. Further back, three more are crossing, also without helmets. To their right a site dumper loaded with rubble is moving with its operator in the seat, and top right an excavator is working beside the spoil heap.

    CAM-52Bare-headed among the machines

    «Tell me when somebody walks across the area where the machines are working without a helmet on, and tell me while he is crossing — there is no second chance there.»

    See this camera →The building site

What it does not do

IRIS does not check whether the helmet is the right one, whether it has expired or whether the chinstrap is done up. It sees whether someone is wearing one or not.

And it identifies nobody: it says someone is without a helmet where one is required, not who they are. In a wide yard view, forty metres away and backlit, that question cannot be answered well, so it is better not to ask it there.

Questions

Is it meant for disciplining people?
No, and using it that way ruins it. IRIS identifies nobody: it does not recognise faces and does not know who appears in the image. It sees a person without a helmet where one is required and alerts in time for them to put one on. The aim is for them to walk in wearing it, not to open a personnel file. A site where alerts are used to punish is a site where within a week nobody reads the alerts.
Does it work if the helmet is hidden by a hood or by a load?
Not always, and it is worth knowing before anything is installed. A hood, a tall pallet or strong backlight can hide the head. That is why the camera goes where the head is seen head-on and close: at the turnstile, the pedestrian gate, the compulsory crossing point. There a person fills half the frame and there is no doubt. In a wide yard view, that same question can no longer be answered well.
Can it be asked for in one specific area only?
Yes, and that is the right way to set it up. In almost no facility is a helmet required everywhere: it is required at the entrance to the shop, inside the crane radius, in the machine area or in the technical corridor. You mark that zone on the camera image and the alert only fires there. That way the alert means something, and the changing room or the office do not generate noise all day long.
Does it check whether the helmet is certified or properly fastened?
No. IRIS sees whether a helmet is on or not; it does not distinguish models, it does not know whether it has expired and it does not check whether the chinstrap is fastened. A person still has to look at that. What IRIS adds is the repetitive, boring part: somebody watching that gate all day, every day, and speaking up the moment someone walks through without one.

See all the questions

The real interface, step by step

You set the rule once. IRIS applies it every time.

You will see a summary of the interface, played step by step and hands-free. Each round starts with another case. The complete tool does not fit in a demo.

  1. The rule gets built
  2. It goes to every camera
  3. Published, it watches alone
  4. And then it fires
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