Worksites under the Land Transport Authority (LTA) are getting safer, with fewer accidents happening so far this year.

The LTA said that accident severity rate is 138 man-days lost per million man-hours worked during the first seven months of this year, down from 557 man-days lost per million man-hours worked during 2012. LTA chairman Michael Lim said the accident frequency rate also fell from 0.38 accidents per million man hours in 2012 to 0.32 from January to July this year.

This improvement follow the launch of an LTA drive, dubbed the Zero Accident Movement, to make worksites safer last year. The statistics were announced on Wednesday when the LTA honoured 33 contractors for putting in place safe work practices at the 15th Annual Safety Award Convention.

Korean-based contractor Ssangyong Engineering & Construction received the top award, the LTA Contractors Challenge Shield, for its work on Contract 921 to construct Rochor and Little India stations under the Downtown Line 2 project.

Two new awards were also being introduced this year to recognise the efforts of construction companies in beefing up supervision of safety and managing noise levels in LTA worksites.