This thesis examines disaster policy at the local government level. Specifically, earthquake preparedness planning in three British Columbia school districts is examined. The disaster policy cycle and seismic risk in British Columbia are also addressed. Prior to the late 1980's, the Vancouver, Coquitlam and Langley school districts had not adopted specific measures to prepare for an earthquake. The Loma Prieta earthquake in California in 1989 increased earthquake awareness in British Columbia substantially. Thus, the Vancouver, Coquitlam and Langley school districts were faced with the same problem: the formulation and development of earthquake preparedness plans. One might expect that since all three school districts were faced with the same problem that a convergent approach to earthquake preparedness planning would be taken. However, the case studies reveal significant divergence in terms of earthquake preparedness. In relation to earthquake preparedness planning in the three school districts case studies, four factors are analyzed: amount of money spent, centralized approach versus decentralized approach, reliance on external expertise and thoroughness of the plan. Four possible explanations for the divergence of earthquake preparedness plans at the school district level are discussed in this thesis. These explanations are influence of interest groups, influence of key personnel, availability of community wealth, and magnitude of risk. The data base of for this thesis consists of the earthquake preparedness planning experience in the Vancouver, Coquitlam and Langley school districts. Relevant school district managers, staff, teachers, school administrators and parents were interviewed. Interviewees were chosen to represent departments or committees that were directly responsible for disaster preparedness or had some stake, direct or indirect, in the issues posed by earthquake preparedness. Documentary sources, government reports and statistics and newspaper articles were also used. Several conclusions can be drawn regarding emergency preparedness at the school district level. First, if magnitude of risk is significant and recognized, then the natural disaster problem has a greater chance of being addressed in an adequate manner. Second, if interest groups focus on a natural disaster problem, then there is more likelihood of more thorough action being taken than if interest groups were not involved. Third, current fiscal restraint indicates that funding, both public and private, will affect the thoroughness of emergency preparedness planning. Fourth, the preferences and actions of government officials cannot be ignored in regard to emergency preparedness planning. The degree to which natural disaster problems occupy the scope of government officials' preferences and actions will determine the extent to which disaster policy receives attention in many instances. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

Earthquakes, such as the ones capable of affecting the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, can have a devastating effect on the environment that people live and work in. The purpose of this thesis is to examine methods of dealing with the hazards and problems created by existing, often historically significant, unreinforced buildings in earthquake-prone areas. Gaining an understanding of the complexity of this problem and the issues involved in establishing hazard mitigation policies gives insight into the policy-making process. The research indicates that a number of internal and external factors affect the formulation, adoption, and implementation of hazard mitigation policies. Despite limited awareness of the problem, low political salience of the issue, and limited resources in most communities, there are many steps that can be taken that will reduce the public's exposure to the risks created by unreinforced buildings and strengthen historically significant buildings that hold value, socially, economically, and culturally. Establishing more extensive mitigative measures, such as implementing a seismic retrofit policy, requires a decision-making process that must involve the people who live and work within that community. Each community, through a process of consultation with the stakeholders, needs to decide if it is in their interest to pursue hazard mitigation strategies to reduce the seismic risk. There is a need to integrate hazard mitigation strategies into the daily decision-making process of politicians and planners. The thesis concludes with some points for stakeholders to consider in designing policy to reduce the earthquake hazard that all the communities in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia face. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

M.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

D.Phil. (Engineering Management) / The construction industry has been recognised internationally as one of the most dangerous industries in which to work, with the statistics often explained in terms of the industry’s inherently hazardous nature. In Botswana a total of 281 fatalities were reported to government agencies, mainly recorded in the high-risk sectors over the period of 2000-2004. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role played by key stakeholders in the health and safety (H&S) performance of the Botswana construction industry and to evaluate their level of H&S commitment and implementation. The aim was to determine how clients, designers and contractors can successfully contribute to H&S performance. Five objectives were identified in this research study. The first was to examine the role of key stakeholders in minimising H&S accidents and incidents in the overall H&S performance of the construction industry of Botswana. The second was to establish whether relevant health and safety planning measures contribute to health and safety performance of the construction industry in Botswana. Thirdly, it was to investigate the extent to which the existing legislative framework is relevant to health and safety performance in the construction industry. The fourth was to determine health and safety commitment levels of clients, designers and contractors’ top management in the construction industry of Botswana. The final objective was to design a multi-stakeholder consultative framework that would address H&S from inception to implementation of the construction project. These objectives were achieved through a research design which included a literature review, methods used and procedures developed to administer the questionnaires, data-collection and analysis through various statistical methods. These included descriptive statistics and nonparametric inferential statistics. The results are then presented in statistical format, tables and graphs. While the literature review revealed that construction industry H&S in developed nations is driven by legislation and regulations, the analysis indicated that there is neither statutory obligation nor the desire on the part of designers and the clients to consider H&S...

Thesis (M.Ed. (Curriculum Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2017 / Safety in schools is not only a South African issue, but a global challenge too. The study focused on safety in semi-urban schools of Limpopo Province, Mankweng Circuit. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that affect learners’ safety and to propose ways in which safe schools could be created so that these become centres of learning and where effective teaching takes place. A qualitative approach was used in this study via the use of a purposive sampling method. The sample for this study consisted of 3 learners selected from each 3 different schools. Data was collected through three methods: interviews, observations and written documents. Semi-structured interviews were used to interview learners. The present researcher took five to ten minutes to observe the school before starting the interviews. Substance abuse policy, Minutes for sub-committee for safety and Incidents of violence were used as written documents. The data collected was explicated using step-by-step guide. The study found that some schools in Mankweng Circuit are not safe. Fighting, stabbing, and using drugs and dagga, teenage pregnancy and threats take place on school premises and some of the learners even brought drugs and weapons into school premises. Results also indicated there is a strong partnership between parents and law enforcement agencies for instance polices are working together in the provision of safety measures in schools. As part of the study recommendations, all discarded materials such as broken chairs, tables and blackboards are stored far away from the learners’ classes and gate.

Conventional road safety models rely on historical crash data. Locations with high crash injury statistics are given primary interventions. However, crash data are subject to errors, under-reportings, inaccuracy, and requires years to get updated, as crash events are infrequent and partly random(Gettman, Pu, Sayed and Shelby, 2008), as well as road conditions might change. With the advances in connected vehicle technologies, vehicles can be used as mobile sensors that collects driver behavior information. And if found correlated with the crash data, the driver behavior indices can act as safety surrogate measures. This dissertation focuses first on presenting an algorithm for mapping a vehicle sensing big dataset to a digital road network, in a metropolitan city, using the accompanied GPS trajectories. This is a challenging task since the data collected from the on-board-diagnostic port of the vehicle is sampled at a low ping rate, adding to that the excess of GPS noise in urban canyons, which makes the map matching problem even harder. Next, a spatial correlation study is presented. It investigates the spatial relationship between the driver behavior indices (i.e. speed parameters, hard braking and hard acceleration) and crashes (crash frequencies and crash rates, normalized with traffic volume). Highways and non-highway roads are bucketed separately. The other focus of this dissertation is developing an injury-prediction network screening model, that provide safety ranking of road intersections. Novel explanatory variables are derived from the telematics data, such as intersection traffic maneuvers and traffic conflicts. The non-linearity between the explanatory variables as well as the spatial dependency between road intersection is also tested.

Includes bibliography. / The aim of undertaking the project was to investigate the activities of the University of Cape Town Campus Control unit. The study is based on the premise that there is an underestimation of Campus Control work. A number of basic questions were examined in the field. The researcher sought to determine, among other things, the extent to which the unit's work is invisible, and the extent to which the university community's reported ambivalence and indifference to Campus Control practice a result of a lack of clarity regarding the role of the unit within the university. The research also moved from the premise that there is too great an emphasis on the use of crime statistics as indices of the unit' effectiveness. The racial and gender configuration of assignments was also investigated as was the training offered to new and old recruits. Participant observation as a body of different methods and techniques of research was used. The researcher spent six weeks in the field with the campus control officers in order to experience the demands of policing from "the native's point of view". The unit is in the process of transforming. It seeks to embrace the discourse of community participation with a view to getting the entire community involved in the provision of its own safety and security. The community involvement initiatives are also designed to improve the relationship between the unit and the community. In the past, the relationship has been a very traumatic one, fraught with mistrust and had far-reaching consequences for the unit's performance. The study comes to the conclusion that both women and blacks in Campus Control are a case of structural marginality. The unit does not reflect the racial and gender composition of the community it serves. It was also discovered that some of the unit's glaring shortcomings are played out in the sphere of training. The study should help members of the university community to understand and appreciate the role of this indispensable unit within the university community.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fuIrtlment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHIAE in the Department of Criminal Justice at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 1995. / Any tertiary campus is a place composed of unique people requiring atypical law enforcement in comparison to other communities. Conflict between commonweal interests and proprietary responsibility calls for an unbiased discretionary and non-repressive approach to policing (protection) in a calm atmosphere that is conducive to learning for a tranquil environment sought in academia. Law enforcement agencies, including university campus protective systems, share the broad and sometimes vague mandate to enforce the law and keep the peace and order among their respective communities. Although a few studies have been conducted into overseas campus protective systems, no similar research has previously been undertaken in Southern Africa. This scientific research is thus the first of its kind in Southern Africa. The objectives of this study are therefore primarily - • to address the short-coming in knowledge about campus law enforcement in Southern Africa. Consequently, this research is aimed to analyze and define the organization and administration of campus protection at selected Southern Africa universities; • to render a clear account of the role and functions. There of by campus law enforcement personnel by means of breaking down their daily duties and activities, and • to account for the nature and extent of campus crime during the year I January to 31 December 1992. The exploratory, descriptive and comparative research is positivistic in nature. On the other hand the analytical research method followed, explored and examined overseas and limited local literature available. The survey-procedure was followed for the purpose of data collection. Pre-structured and coded questionnaires were adopted as measuring-instrument in order to obtain information regarding aspects of diversity relating to organizational and functional campus protection. Ten arbitrary and selected Southern Africa universities were involved in the investigation. Conclusions and recommendations are vested in statistical information derived from these ten universities. The findings indicate that - • substantial and noteworthy progress has been made among campus protective systems in Southern Africa. New and improved facilities, modern equipment, beneficial budgets and reformed standard of personnel have afforded a position to the betterment of university campus protection. While some campus protective systems have enhanced the quality of their performance, many fail to efficaciously utilize these benefits in reaching their imminent objective; • the organizational and administrative functioning of university campus protection constantly show a typical para-military bureaucratic tendency cast in the same mould of the Max Weber's rationalism theory; • cooperation between higher-learning, campus student personnel and campus protection is a matter of course and augmenting the necessity for a particular framework of a cooperative disciplinary programme in order to prevent apprehensiveness of campus crime; • although no national or institutional obligation exists for reporting campus crime separately, the research indicates that the overwhelming preponderance of campus crime prevailing, is a contravention of university disciplinary regulations and criminal offenses against private and institutional property and persons (students and personnel). All aspects of campus jurisdiction must therefore be addressed by purposeful campus protective programmes.

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