What is the formula for TRIR and what does the 200,000 represent?

TRIR equals the number of OSHA recordable cases times 200,000, divided by total hours worked in the period. The 200,000 constant represents 100 full-time employees working 2,000 hours a year, roughly 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, the baseline OSHA chose so results read as cases per 100 full-time workers per year regardless of how many people actually worked or how many hours they logged. A firm with 3 recordables across 400,000 hours worked, half of that notional 100-worker-year baseline, calculates TRIR as 3 times 200,000 divided by 400,000, or 1.5. Without the multiplier, the raw ratio of cases to hours would be a tiny decimal that is hard to compare across firms of different sizes.

What is considered a good TRIR in construction?

There is no single legal threshold, but construction trade groups publish rolling industry averages that firms benchmark against, and many prequalification forms set a cutoff below which a bidder is excluded. A TRIR meaningfully below the published industry average generally reads as a strong program; one meaningfully above it invites scrutiny on a bid. Because TRIR is built from a small number of cases, a single incident can swing it sharply for a smaller contractor, so owners and insurers usually look at it alongside EMR and several years of trend rather than one year in isolation.

Why does TRIR count every recordable instead of just lost-time cases?

Because TRIR is meant to measure overall injury frequency, not just the most severe cases. Lost-time cases alone would miss incidents that still required real medical treatment, restricted duty, or a job transfer, all of which signal hazards worth fixing even if nobody missed a shift. Including every recordable case gives TRIR a larger sample and makes it move earlier than a lost-time-only measure, which is also why it is the rate most commonly asked for on bid prequalification forms. DART and LTIR exist specifically to narrow the focus to the more severe subset once TRIR has raised the overall flag.

Construction Glossary · Safety

Total RecordableIncident Rate

One number turns a year of recordable cases into something a bid reviewer, an insurer, and a competitor can all compare on equal footing.

Definition

The headline safety rate: recordable cases times 200,000 divided by hours worked. The 200,000 constant represents 100 full-time workers at 2,000 hours a year, so TRIR normalizes recordables to that scale and lets firms of very different sizes compare injury frequency on equal footing.

The formula behind the headline rate

3 recordables across 400,000 hours worked, half a notional 100-worker year, produces a TRIR of 1.5. That number means little alone; it earns meaning next to a benchmark like the construction industry average. Two firms with very different headcounts and total hours can land on the same TRIR, because the formula already adjusts for scale, which is the entire point of normalizing to 200,000.

Where TRIR sits in the family

TRIR is the widest lens. DART and LTIR narrow the same underlying case count to progressively more severe subsets. Reading all three together, rather than TRIR alone, shows not just how many incidents happened but how serious they were, which is why safety audits and bid reviews increasingly ask for the full set instead of a single headline number.

Rate	What it counts	Scope vs TRIR
TRIR	Every OSHA recordable case	Full scope, the baseline
DART	Days-away, restricted, or transferred cases	A subset of TRIR
LTIR	Days-away, lost-time, cases only	A subset of DART

Every TRIR case starts life as an OSHA recordable incident; the subset that also qualifies for DART or LTIR depends on its classification.

How POD surfaces TRIR

POD surfaces the TRIR you report on the safety tab, next to the recordable count and the hours behind it, gated to real data with a placeholder when it is not provided. POD reads the rate you report rather than recalculating it for you.

TRIR in construction guide

Frequently asked questions

TRIR is the wide-angle lens

To see only the most severe cases inside that same count, narrow the lens to DART.

DART Rate Back to the Glossary

Related terms

Recordable Incident LTIR DART EMR