International Playground Standards

As I return from the ISO Technical Committee 83 Committee on Sports and other recreational facilities and equipment, Working Groups 6 and 8 (ISO/TC83 WG6 and 8) meetings in Germany, I reflect on what has occurred internationally since the first ISO/TC83 in-person meetings several years pre-Covid. Here is some background on the USA’s involvement in the ISO Standards work of the ISO TC83.

Why is the USA involved in these international endeavors?

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing international standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees, such as ISO/TC83. It operates under its own set of policies and procedures which are much in the spirit of free trade and therefore much the same as our anti-trust laws which govern the operation of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM International). For further explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO-specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html or acquire ISO Standard TR 20183 Terms and Definitions related to sport and recreation facilities and equipment.

Each ISO member body (Country) interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization. What is interesting is the one country, one vote, sounds reasonable. Canada gets one vote but has 10 Provinces and 3 Territories, while the USA gets one vote but has 50 states. The European Union comprises 27 sovereign nations and gets 27 votes. All other sovereign country members also get but one vote. This all is a result of the Geneva Convention. The USA voting member is appointed through the US TAG which functions under ANSI (American National Standards Institute). To participate in this process an interested party must first join ASTM and the US TAG at an annual membership cost. This TAG is managed with the assistance of the ASTM and its members who have an interest in the ISO working group projects.

Background from the Beginning

In the winter of 2016, the German standards writing body DIN put forward a proposal that the European playground standard EN1176 parts 1-11, be considered for the base documents toward becoming ISO or international standards for playgrounds. This was opposed by both Canada and the United States as well as some other European countries within ISO Technical Committee 83 Sports and Other Recreational Facilities and Equipment (ISO/TC 83) at the ISO meeting for many reasons including existing national laws and cultural differences around the world related to play. Play is not always structured, and the Technical Committee (TC) must be very careful in imposing international standards where they might not be to the benefit of the country, the users, or owners of play facilities. As a result of the discussion at the ISO TC83 plenary, the DIN motion did not pass. It was decided after much discussion to initiate a provisional Work Item under an ISO Working Group of ISO/TC83, with secretariat support provided by DIN. The focus was to explore the challenges and benefits of developing an international standard for play spaces and/or equipment and to that end, three regional workshops are being organized. The three convenors (sub-chairs) were David Eager from Australia for the Pacific and Asia, Karl Koehler from Germany for the European nations, and Rolf Huber from Canada for the Americas. The intent was to have a report from each convenor on the results of their regional conferences. Within 3 years the convenors were to make recommendations to ISO/TC83 as to whether there is consensus to move forward with an international standard and what that standard might look like. This was expected to occur around the beginning of 2017.

To recap the situation that led us to where we are today began with a TC83 Meeting for the Americas, held in Toronto in 2017 shortly after the DIN motion was defeated. At this meeting, it was the consensus of the participants that there were definite areas of mutual international concern being raised around the world. There were 4 items or mutual interest that were endorsed by the ISO/TC83 WG 8.  

1. Defining the essence and benefits of play
2. Create a toolbox of playground test probes, and gauges, for entrapment and entanglement and standards rationale
3. Need to improve on inspection and maintenance of play areas through review of the competencies of inspectors and maintenance technicians
4. Create a standard for the 4.6kg hemispherical surface testing missile used in ASTM F1292, En1177, and others.

This was the very beginning of the ISO TC83 Working Group 8 formed to further determine if some areas of concern were worthy of becoming ISO Standard. Just before this ASTM Subcommittees participated in an effort by ISO/TC83 to develop an international standard on terms and definitions related to sport and recreational facilities and equipment. This effort resulted in the ISO TR 21083 Terminology Standard with the intent of getting everyone involved in standards writing to try and harmonize terms and definitions within their national standards. ISO/TC83WG6 was formed to work on risk assessment.

Austrailia 2018

At the 2^nd meeting in Sydney, AU in 2018 of both ISO/TC 83/WG 6 and 8 it was a consensus that while a harmonized ISO standard for public playground equipment was not feasible because of the diversity in intended user age groups, differences in anthropometric reference resources used within national normative standards, and the different probes/gauges and test methods currently recommended by the various international playground equipment standards that our initial purpose to harmonize a standard “International Tool Box” of test probes/gauges was not feasible by the participating countries in WG8. The WG8 decided to identify all possibilities to harmonize regulations for safety hazards such as different types of entrapments and probes/gauges of the various national norms, such as; ASTM F1487-17 (USA), U.S. CPSC Handbook for Public Playground Safety 2010, AS 4685 and CSA Z614-20 (Canada), EN 1176:2017 (CEN, Europa), JPFA SP-S:2014 (Japan), SS457:2018 (Singapore) as well as MS 966:2017 (Malaysia).

Finland 2019

At the 3^rd ISO/TC 83/WG 8 early spring meeting in Helsinki 2019 it was the consensus of the countries present that several major discrepancies remained for how national playground safety norms identify and test for specific universally known playground safety hazards. It was also determined the existing national norms used different anthropometric reference resources and age parameters as the rationale for recommending the dimensions for the various test method probes and gauges. This document provides standards writers with current safety test methods related to various common probes/gauges used in international playground safety standards to identify performance specification deficiencies with various international norm recommendations for public playground equipment as related to injury and safety definitions and thresholds. It is intended to contribute to the harmonization of the language and understanding of the severity of injuries and basic compliance with the safety of products and test procedures as well as to comply with European Directive 2001/95/EC on General product safety requirements. This document, ISO/DTR 24666:2019 Sports and recreational facilities — Inventory of General Performance Recommendations, Test Probes and Gauges, and Corresponding Test Methods to Identify Known Safety Hazards on Playground Equipment provides a historical context to how most international safety performance recommendations evolved based on national norms and rationale.

Once this standard was completed the ISO/TC83 WG 8 continued developing a standard for the competencies and the levels of knowledge necessary to be a qualified playground safety inspector and/or a maintenance technician. While the work on this standard started with the 2nd meeting, progress was slow. Once the “Toolbox” standard referenced above was completed, WG8 was able to finally complete the inspector and maintenance technician competency standard online through more frequent video conferences. This was a challenging process to get participants from across the globe to be able to participate with so many time zones, but it worked. As many as 15 countries were participating.

Another outcome of the Helsinki meeting was the moving forward of ISO 24667, Sports and recreational facilities – Impact surfacing testing device.

Japan 2019

By the 4^th meeting in Tokyo, JP in October 2019, the work on this standard was well underway. The chain of events at this meeting should have given us pause as to what lies ahead. There was a 30^th Anniversary Celebration of the Japanese Park and Facilities Association of Japan which wrote their JPFA playground standard. All ISO/TC83WG6 and 8 members were invited. JPFA then hosted the ISO meeting at the historic Kiyosumi Park Gardens. The following day the ISO October 8 the ISO meetings began. By the end of the 2^nd day, everyone was aware a typhoon was headed towards Tokyo and scheduled to arrive on October 10. Many began making evacuation plans before the government was going to shut down all transportation systems. Many departed before our work on the inspector maintenance technician competency levels work could begin or continue with the work on the risk-benefit assessment. Some members from Japan, Europe, Canada, and USA rode out the storm, and work continued at our hotel in a makeshift meeting room the hotel formed in the lobby. The trains, buses, subway, airports, and cabs all shut down the next day with no way to communicate other than via Wifi and sporadic cell phone signals. It did not matter since nobody was working at any of these transportation offices to answer the phone. That night while we were asleep the Typhoon hit. It was very rainy and windy, so nobody was outside. Those of us who remained continued working in the hotel lobby. Afterward, we went out and bought some provisions from a small convenient store next to the hotel that was still open. A few of us who were staying at this hotel were having some dinner in our room. During this time, we noticed a sway or movement of sorts in the room and commented on the strength of the winds. We were on one of the highest floors. We sat around and talked as we had no Wifi, cell phone, or TV. We were cut off from all communication for some time and had no way of getting any news. A bit later cell phone service came back on and I received a call from my good friend and JPFA Advisor Ryuta Otsubo. He wanted to know if we were all safe. I told him we were, and I thanked him for his concern. He asked if the hotel had any damage. I said there did not appear to be any and the power was still on. He said he had not heard the extent of the earthquake damage in our area. He told us authorities were just now out to survey the situation. I asked him "what earthquake?" The shaking or swaying of our hotel noticed earlier that night was not the wind. We had all just experienced a double whammy, a typhoon and an earthquake at around the same time during our Tokyo meetings. The following morning all was sunny and calm with hardly a person on the street. All would be shut down until sometime later that weekend or Monday morning, October 13^th. This was a good travel learning experience, but little did the world know what lay ahead of us. The COVID-19 Virus was already circulating the world before the world was alerted to the dangers ahead. The Tokyo meeting with its typhoon and earthquake must have been a sign as it would be the last in-person ISO meeting until June 2024 in Berlin.

Since that Tokyo meeting, ISO/TC83 WG6 has published the ISO 4980:2022 Standard for Sport and other recreational facilities and equipment – Benefit-risk assessment for sports, for recreational and sports facilities, including equipment. ISO/TC83 WG8 has also published ISO/TC83 TR 24666:2022 — Probes for entrapment/entanglement on playground equipment — Collection of data and ISO/TC83 TS 24667:2021 Sport and other recreational facilities and equipment – and WG8 also completed the ISO 24665:2022 Standard for Playground and recreational areas - Framework for the competence of playground inspectors and playground maintenance technicians. The following is from the standard showing the level of competence recommended for each level of service being provided.

This chart is copyrighted by the ISO 24665:2022 Standard

ISO/TC83 WG6 will be continuing to work on the sustainability aspect of sports and recreational facilities and equipment whose main objectives are to define the approaches to address sustainability when using ISO 4980 benefit-risk assessment standard approach to better support the realization of UN SDGs. This work must be applied before the project or product comes to market and is part of the project assessment process in the developmental stage. Applying this process after the fact can be done but it would require knowledge and skills the owner or assessor is not likely to possess on their own without outside special qualified consultants.

This document is intended for owners and operators to better prepare them to carry out sport and recreational activities, irrespective of size or location taking into consideration the risk control or benefit enhancement identified after such an assessment for the sustainability aspects in sports and recreational facilities and equipment.  

The latest project under the auspices of the ISO/TC83 WG8 is to address accessibility but beyond playgrounds to include all play spaces and amenities that support play and sport activities under the TC83 purview. The group is just getting started and has been working on the scoping statement of the document which has yet to be finalized and on various terms and definitions that are being considered for inclusion in this document. Another item under consideration of WG8 is the Use of Ropes in Sport, Recreation, and Play.

Next meeting Spring 2025 in Syndey Australia. Standby.