The following article by Kody Cook appeared in Council Magazine October 2, 2025.
Sentinal Vision AI’s smart cameras can detect potential safety hazards before they become harmful accidents. Image: PRM Engineering.
Heavy machinery can pose significant risks to both operators and bystanders. For councils managing roadworks, waste collection, and civil construction, staying ahead with the latest safety technology is essential.
Vehicle and machinery-related incidents are the leading cause of workplace fatalities – often due to pedestrians or workers entering high-risk zones. Twelve per cent of Australia’s workplace fatalities in 2023 were due to being hit by moving objects. This mostly involved workers on foot being hit by vehicles, as well as impacts by other moving equipment or objects. That translates to over 24 lives lost in a single year, according to Safe Work Australia.
For many councils and contractors, even non-fatal incidents – like near misses or machinery faults – can lead to serious injury, service disruption or legal exposure.
With over 139,000 serious injury claims lodged nationally in 2022-23 and waste services, construction, and road maintenance ranking among the most hazardous council operations, local governments are under increasing pressure to strengthen safety outcomes. Yet, many traditional safety protocols are passive, manual, and reactive – making it hard to detect and prevent hazards before they escalate.
What can be done?
The most effective way to reduce incidents from moving vehicles is to separate the workers from the machinery. This is often done with exclusion zones, barriers and other markings.
But often these measures aren’t enough. Complacency and a lack of safety culture on the worksite can see workers ignore barriers or warning markings, which inevitably leads to incidents.
To address these persistent challenges, PRM Engineering has developed Sentinel Vision AI, a next-generation safety platform designed to modernise how councils and contractors manage risk on-site.
Built around artificial intelligence and cloud data logging, Sentinel Vision AI equips machinery – like excavators, compactors, and waste trucks – with smart cameras capable of detecting people in hazardous zones. These detections can be triggered only when the machine is in reverse, or in specific machine configurations. This allows coworkers to work around the machine when safe; and provides immediate indication when unsafe.
These immediate alarms save critical seconds for the pedestrian and machine operator to react. These detections are automatically logged, analysed, and surfaced in user-friendly dashboards that give safety managers a clear picture of on-site risks.
Unlike static safety controls such as cones or fences, Sentinel Vision AI provides live feedback. Site managers can quickly see whether recent safety changes are having an effect – such as reductions in pedestrian detections after a new traffic pattern is introduced. These insights let decision-makers refine safety processes using hard evidence, not guesswork.
Driving behaviour and process change
The real strength of Sentinel Vision AI lies in its ability to shape behaviour, both for machinery operators and surrounding workers. Not only does the device act as an alert system to protect workers on site, it encourages proactive changes in worksite habits by logging incidents and making safety data visible and actionable.
It enables safety teams to go beyond the ‘what happened’ and explore the ‘why’. Why are staff moving into truck operating zones? Why do most detections happen between 8 and 10am? Which machines are involved in the most incidents?
These insights empower councils to target the root causes of unsafe behaviour – not just the symptoms.
Visual representations of detections, trends, and machine activity also make the technology more intuitive for site personnel. It’s more than numbers on a screen – it’s a live picture of how the site operates and where safety can be improved.
With Sentinel Vision AI cloud capabilities, councils can monitor incident trends across their entire fleet, compare safety performance across different machinery types (e.g. excavators, loaders and trucks), identify dangerous zones with digital heat maps, and analyse time-based patterns to predict high-risk periods.
Sentinel Cloud also records system health checks, operator pre-starts and machine runtime data, allowing maintenance teams to detect faults early and optimise equipment usage. By verifying what’s happening in real time, safety managers can answer key questions like:
- What just happened on site?
- How many near misses have there been?
- Are they concentrated in specific zones or times?
- What process or training needs to change?
This level of clarity supports smarter safety decisions and long-term risk reduction across all council operations.
Sentinel Vision AI has already seen success in a wide range of environments, from roadworks and landfill sites to municipal maintenance yards. Its modular design and local engineering support mean it can be fitted to different vehicles and adapted for various departments, allowing councils to expand coverage without replacing existing equipment.
Looking ahead to a safer future
As more councils adopt AI-powered safety tools, PRM Engineering’s Sentinel Vision AI stands out for its focus on actionable, real-world outcomes. It’s already reshaping how local governments think about worksite risk – not just in preventing incidents, but in building a culture of continuous improvement.
By combining intelligent detection, on machine alarming, automated logging, and cloud-based oversight, Sentinel Vision AI becomes more than a safety system – it’s a strategic tool for councils aiming to protect their people, streamline operations, and cut risk.
