Mobile elevating work platforms (MEWP) are frequently used in many industries, including construction and manufacturing, and for a variety of maintenance applications to elevate workers to work places above ground level. MEWPs become more and more popular because of their flexibility and easy and quick access to any place without setting up scaffolding from the ground. Although MEWP manufacturers, rental companies, users, and occupational safety and health organisations have made continuous efforts to improve MEWP safety (e.g. EN 280, 2010; Strategic Forum for Construction, 2010), the number of injuries and fatalities with MEWPs involved seemed to increase or at least to maintain at a relatively high level. German Social Accident Insurance Institutions report about six fatalities per year (BGI 720, 2013) and NIOSH of the USA reports about 30 fatalities per year for a similar decadal period (NIOSH, 2009), with a tendency of increases in death involving MEWP use. Reliable numbers of injuries are not available, because official accident reports do not necessarily indicate whether work with MEWPs has been involved or may have caused an accident. Countermeasures and intervention strategies developed for accident prevention often are faced with the situation that they take long to become effective and those measures under development cannot be tested in the context of use (i.e. accident situations) to avoid placing operators or others in danger. The German DGUV expert-committee 'Trade and Logistics', sub-committee 'Goods Handling, Storage, and Logistics' in cooperation with the German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the woodworking and metalworking industries (BGHM) as well as for the trade and distribution industries (BGHW) have recently initiated a research project to address this issue. The usability of a prototype MEWP safety measure (Nischalke-Fehn & Bömer, 2011) should be evaluated in virtual reality (VR) before detailed recommendations will be given to manufacturers or users. In the SUTAVE laboratory of the IFA (Huelke et al., 2010; Nickel et al., 2012b), therefore, virtual scenarios with normal and hazardous work situations will be developed to allow operators to use a real control panel with the built-in safety measure in a virtual MEWP.
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