20
Gas
news
Drilling down to the facts:
improving gas incident
reporting
By Michael Weber, Technical
Communicator
ESV’s Gas Installations and Appliance Safety
(GIAS) division has refined its approach
to gas incident reporting after learning
valuable lessons from our counterparts
in New Zealand.
In my last article I described the recording
and reporting of gas incide nt data by Energy
Safety New Zealand (ESNZ) for its quarterly
and annual reports. I outlined the similarities
and differences between our organisations and
described how GIAS now plots gas incident
data on maps and uses this information to
identify clusters and trends, with expectations
that this information may help ESV target
problem areas with specific safety programs.
In this article I will discuss the progress GIAS
has made with data collection, data manipulation
and report development. We are now able to drill
down on incidents by gas type, environment,
appliance type, incident cause and injury severity,
to name a few categories.
Gleaning the facts
Much information is locked within each
incident report statement received by ESV, and
little information comes to the surface unless the
statement is read in detail. Now report statements
are being analysed and broken down into gas
incident components and that information is
stored for later use.
As data populates the spreadsheet, pivot
tables are employed to manipulate gas incident
data into a number of tables and charts that show,
at a glance, what is occurring.
Gas incident data recording, in this detailed
form, is still in its early stages; more data needs to
be assembled, but we are on the way to providing
a better view of the gas incident world in Victoria.
To better understand the richness of gas
incident data, incident reports are broken down
into the following categories (similar to that
employed by ESNZ):
»» gas type
»» environment
»» appliance type
»» cause
»» incident type
»» consequence
»» injury type
»» property damage
»» incident notification.
Each of these categories is further broken
down into individual components. For example,
appliance type is described as:
»» cooker, oven
»» heater
»» hot water service
»» barbecue
20
Residential incidents by equipment type
Sample data for Jul–Sep 2014
15
10
9
6
5
4
2
1
0
Cook
Heat
HWS
Inst
BBQ
Frid
Light
LPG
Unkn
A clearer picture: Greater interrogation of gas incident reports is helping ESV gain a better idea
of what is causing gas incidents around Victoria.
»» refrigerator
»» light
»» LPG storage cylinders
»» unknown.
A new style of reporting
With additional information, now much easier
to access, a change to the style of reporting has
been developed.
As shown above, the majority of incidents
for this period involved heaters (as would be
expected during the colder months of the year)
and the breakdown shows there was one gas
leak, one overheating issue, seven combustion
issues, two fires and four incidents for
unknown reasons.
Separate from heater incidents, there were
also nine installation incidents, which were all
related to gas leaks.
In addition to gas incident information,
telephone Helpline calls are also recorded and
presented by call frequency, call origin and
contact method. This is useful for identifying the
audiences of greatest need. Sample data from
July to September identified that 61 per cent of
calls received came from plumbers/gasfitters,
with a further 30 per cent of calls coming from
public inquiries.
All gas incidents have a specific location,
as identified by their address. This allows their
locations to be plotted on a map. Data is plotted
by layers so that incidents by gas type and appliance
type can be shown individually or together.
Incident clusters are easily identified, thus
illuminating problem areas.
Making the data work for us
Greater interrogation of gas incident reports
now provides additional detail and helps our
understanding of the mechanisms around
gas incidents.
New data reporting methods provide
information at a glance and with the
advancements in data interrogation and
improvements in reporting GIAS will achieve:
»» quicker turnaround for statistical data
»» greater detail of statistical information with
the ability to drill down to specific event types
»» greater ability to cross reference data,
identify trends and make predictions.
One further step that is being considered is
that of chart and table data being directly plotted
on maps, creating a 3D rendering of gas incident
information. That way location and severity of
incidents or types of incidents can be seen in one
view; this becomes a powerful planning tool.
I
f you have a query you can
phone the Gas Technical
Helpline on 1800 652 563