Using the Travel Restraint Access Module (TRAM) system as part of New Zealand Crane Group’s overall safety programme has allowed the firm to reduce its insurance payments by 20%.

Using a double lanyard, a rigger using the TRAM system ties off onto a moveable handlebar that travels along a rail running the length of the boom.

This handlebar can rotate 180° to aid manoeuvrability and ensure safety while mounting or climbing off the crane. As the rigger walks squeezing the TRAM’s air-powered handbrake allows it to move with the rigger.

In the event of a fall, the deadman brake prevents the handlebar from moving, and as the rigger is tied off at the waist level, while the handlebar and rail is at foot level, the distance of the fall is minimised.

Explaining the investment, New Zealand Crane Group’s managing director Deane Manley commented: “It has been standard industry practice for years to climb on top of booms without adequate fall protection, but this has just got to stop. It is clearly hazardous but no one seemed to know of a better way before.

“At four metres above the ground, a fall from that height is enough to kill someone. When we found out about TRAM it was clear that ignorance was no longer an excuse.”

So far two Grove cranes, a GMK 5170 and a GMK 4100 have been fitted with the fall arrest system and are already back at work on the NZ$230m North Island grid update project for the Balfour Beatty/United Group joint venture (BBUG).

Another 10 cranes in New Zealand Crane Group’s 50-strong fleet are due to be fitted by December, which the firm believes will make it one of the first companies in the world to commit to the use of fall protection systems so extensively.

The system, manufactured by Standfast Corporation, can be attached to the boom via welding, banding or use of an epoxy resin, and is certified to all relevant international fall protection system standards.