Identification and Prioritization of Key Factors Leading to Incidents in Deep Excavation Sites

The growing population of the world and the high land value have boosted the demand for more high-rise buildings. In this regard, the number of deep excavation sites is increasing as more underground stories are needed for parking lots. Safety issues concerning the reduction of excavation incidents is a subject with a broad background. In this paper, factors involved in excavation incidents are identified using the two-round Delphi technique. The procedure was followed by reviewing a wide range of research literature. Sixteen key factors were identified by experts’ opinions according to the factors extracted from the research literature, which led to the establishment of a useful framework based on sustainable development. Next, the key factors were prioritized using a questionnaire and the pairwise comparisons of the criteria based on expert opinions. In the end, after analyzing the questionnaires, the final assessment and prioritization were carried out using the software ‘Expert Choice’.