One week after New York City announced it would shepherd a national database of tower cranes to improve jobsite safety, a crane-rental executive in Pennsylvania has built the world’s first Internet site for tracking crane repairs, inspections and other critical details.
The site is the industry’s first voluntary effort to make crane tracking more transparent in the wake of major accidents last year. “I wanted to get something out there that answers these cries for tracking cranes,” says Frank Bardonaro, president of Bensalem, Pa.-based AmQuip. He has spent about $40,000 and six months developing the site, CraneFacts.com. Bardonaro says he also wanted to “take the spotlight away [from] politicians and put it back on safety.”