What Is the DART Rate?

The DART rate stands for “Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred” and is a key safety metric used in many organizations to measure the severity of workplace injuries or illnesses. Unlike simpler incident counts, DART focuses only on those incidents that are serious enough to cause an employee to miss work, change duties, or move to a different role.

This makes the DART rate a powerful indicator of not just how often incidents happen, but how disruptive they are in terms of lost productivity, operational cost, and human impact.

Why Tracking the DART Rate Is Crucial

1. Regulatory & Compliance Insight
   Because the DART rate ties directly into OSHA (or similar regulatory body) reporting, monitoring it helps you stay compliant.
2. Benchmarking & Comparison
   Standardizing to a common scale (using a base number of hours) lets you compare your safety performance against industry averages or other businesses — regardless of company size.
3. Severity Over Frequency
   While other metrics like TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate) count all recordable injuries, DART zooms in on the more serious ones that carry stronger operational and financial implications.
4. Driving Safety Culture
   A high DART rate signals a need for stronger prevention strategies: better training, more rigorous incident investigation, or a stronger return-to-work program.
5. Cost and Productivity Implications
   Beyond human toll, DART events often translate into higher workers’ compensation premiums, lost output, and possibly heightened regulatory scrutiny.

How the DART Rate Is Calculated

DART Rate = (Number of DART incidents × 200,000) ÷ Total hours worked

• Number of DART incidents: These are the cases that resulted in days away from work, restricted duty, or job transfer.
• Total hours worked: This includes all the labor hours put in by employees during the reporting period — but typically excludes non-working time such as vacations, holidays, or sick leave.
• 200,000: This constant standardizes the data. It represents the number of hours 100 full-time employees would work in a year (assuming 40 hours/week × 50 weeks).

By scaling to 200,000 hours, the rate becomes comparable across companies regardless of workforce size.

Your DART Rate

• Low: Indicates strong control over safety, relatively few serious injuries. (Some calculators classify ≤ 1.875 as “low” risk.)
• Moderate: Suggests there’s room for improvement; safety processes may be decent but not optimized. (Omni Calculator, for instance, labels 1.875–4.125 as “moderate.”)
• High: Reflects a significant safety concern. A DART rate above ~4.125 (per some benchmarks) may call for immediate action.

Keep in mind: what’s “good” or “acceptable” strongly depends on your industry. Benchmarks vary, and a rate that seems high in one sector may be average in another.

Best Practices to Lower Your DART Rate

To reduce your DART rate, consider implementing the following strategies:

1. Thorough Incident Investigation
   Every DART incident should be deeply investigated to identify root causes not just what happened, but why it happened and how to prevent it.
2. Continuous Training
   Regular, targeted training (including refreshers) helps ensure that all employees understand the hazards of their roles and how to work safely.
3. Return-to-Work Programs
   Designing a structured return-to-work policy (for restricted duty or modified roles) helps injured workers reintegrate earlier, reducing lost-time days.
4. Hazard Control
   Implement stronger controls (engineering, administrative, or personal protective equipment) to prevent the types of events leading to DART cases.
5. Transparent Reporting & Culture
   Encourage early reporting of near-misses, discomfort, or unsafe conditions. A proactive safety culture catches risks before they escalate.

Sources: Ecesis, Omni Calculator, Creative Safety Supply, Injury Facts (NSC), SafetySpace.