The effective application of safety signs in coal mines plays a crucial role in controlling unsafe miner behavior and reducing risks. While studies have analyzed the effectiveness of safety signs in coal mines, there is a lack of systematic identification of the key factors supporting their effectiveness and in-depth exploration of how these factors interact to exert their effects.
Objective
This study aims to explore, from a systems perspective, the key factors influencing the effectiveness of safety signs in coal mines and their interaction action paths, with the goal of optimizing safety signs design and reducing the occurrence of accidents.
Methods
Using a combination of literature review and expert consultation, the study identifies six stages of miners’ cognitive processing of safety signs and extracts 26 influencing factors. An innovative Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory-Interpretive Structural Modeling (DEMATEL-ISM) hybrid model, improved with interval type-2 trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (IT2TrFN), was developed to identify key influencing factors and construct a multi-layer hierarchical structural model for analyzing their interaction action paths.
Results
The logo color, information awareness, pre-experience control, personality traits, psychological decision-making, emergency response level, physical coordination, management support, and patterned logo are the key influencing factors, of which the first seven key factors form the main action paths.
Conclusions
The effectiveness of coal mine safety signs results from the combined influence of multiple factors. By managing these key factors and their interaction action paths, the effectiveness of safety signs can be enhanced, thereby preventing coal mine accidents.
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