Officials leverage tech to fight construction irregularities
An urban management and law enforcement official (right) from Dachang Town, Baoshan District, requires a construction site operator to fix irregularities on Monday morning.
Irregularities are found through surveillance cameras at a construction site in Dachang Town, Baoshan District.
Shanghai authorities will intensify crackdown on irregularities such as noise and dust pollution at construction sites with the introduction of intelligent supervision and management, officials announced on Monday.
The city's urban management and law enforcement authorities have imposed administrative penalties in 761 cases involving irregularities at construction sites since March, when they started taking on the duty transferred from other authorities.
Among these cases, 220 concerned noise disturbances and 216 were related to dust pollution, according to the Shanghai Urban Management and Law Enforcement Bureau.
The rest involved failures in safety measures and warning signs, sewage discharges and illegal storage of construction materials, to list some, according to the bureau.
About 11,000 urban management and law enforcement officials have made 26,000 patrols at construction sites across the city since March.
Urban management and law enforcement officials from Dachang Town order a construction site operator to rectify irregularities.
Officials inspect a construction site on Monday morning.
"Authorities will beef up crackdown on improper handling of construction waste such as industrial muck and slurry; noise, water, soil and dust pollution; improper setup of scaffold and safety facilities, night construction that disturbs nearby residents; and unlicensed transportation and covert dumping of construction waste," said Xu Zhihu, director of the bureau.
For those failing to rectify irregularities, the information of construction units will be listed on the city's public credibility platform, and violators will face criminal charges in serious cases.
Real-time information sharing will be done among different government authorities to improve law enforcement supervision and management efficiency, the bureau said.
Construction sites will be rated based on management information, construction status and law enforcement data via Internet plus big data technologies to make supervision and management more scientific and precise based on different ratings, Xu said.
A risk-warning mechanism targeting construction sites with high incidences of violations has been established to lift management efficiency, and high-definition surveillance cameras will be installed at all construction sites in the city for 24-hour real-time remote monitoring together with on-site patrols, the bureau said.
Once irregularities are spotted, an alert will be sounded via an intelligent platform and it will immediately direct officials closest to the construction site to the scene.
An urban management and law enforcement official from Dachang Town monitors construction irregularities.
The intelligent approach also covers noise monitoring and surveillance cameras on vehicles carrying construction waste, the bureau said.
"The scientific, refined and intelligent approach on supervision and management aims to eliminate safety hazards and ensure a clean environment of the city," said Xu.
In Dachang Town in northern Baoshan District, the construction site supervision and management platform displays real-time images and vehicle movements at 28 construction sites covering 1.56 million square meters.
Once an irregularity is discovered, officials nearest to the site can be dispatched within minutes.
On Monday morning, inspectors spotted two irregularities via the platform. These involved exposed muck and improper protection measures at a construction site in Liandong Village on Jinqiu Road.
Within minutes, officials visited the scene and ordered construction operators to rectify the problems immediately.
“We use combined means which also includes unmanned aerial vehicles and Beidou satellite navigation system in our supervision and management to improve accuracy," said Wang Xiaomeng, an official with the Dachang Town urban management and law enforcement team.
"This changes the traditional mode of relying on tip-offs to real-time monitoring, and provides proof of irregularities with recording functions," she added.
The Dachang Town urban management and law enforcement team has ordered rectification in 19 cases and imposed fines in eight this year under the intelligent mechanism.
Construction workers follow orders to cover exposed muck at a construction site on Monday morning.
