What is the Purpose of a Traffic Management Plan?

A traffic management plan at any construction site is not just advisable; it is your legislated duty to ensure all workers, visitors, pedestrians, motorists, and any other people who have a touchpoint with your project are kept safe — delivered through a properly documented construction traffic management plan. The Road Safety Act states that works must be “conducted safely for road users and persons engaged in carrying out the works”. At the same time, the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 “places a duty of care under common law to take all reasonable measures to prevent accidents or injury to persons carrying out the works and also to members of the public using the road”. To ensure that these duties of care are carried out, a traffic management plan is integral because it identifies and maps out specific movements in these areas. Consequently, safer provisions and measures can be enforced to safeguard the conditions, especially if road work or other disruptions are a part of the picture.

What’s an example of a traffic management plan?

Different circumstances call for various traffic management plans, so here are some examples of when they can be effectively deployed for these situations:

• Road work: If there are any changes to road conditions because of work being completed, a plan will need to be put in place to mitigate the flow of traffic and pedestrians under these changed conditions.
• Site work: Any business, complex or institution that has traffic will also need to action some form of process to ensure the safety of those working on or frequenting the area. This can include (but is not isolated to) shopping centres, hospitals and university complexes.
• Events: When there is a major event like a concert, sporting match or any other mass gathering, the traffic conditions will need to change. In these circumstances, a plan is needed to manage parking, the heavy flow of pedestrian traffic to and from the event, and road closures.

Should you write your own traffic management plan?

It is not advisable to write your own Traffic Management Plan because numerous legislation and compliance layers need to be met. Often we have situations where clients have attempted to prepare their own Traffic Management Plan only for the Council to reject it, which results in delays to their projects. If your works are on a VicRoads road, only an individual or organisation that is pre-qualified with VicRoads is allowed to write and submit a Traffic Management Plan, so if you do not have that pre-qualification, your plan will be rejected. This extends to your works as well. The people that you enlist to carry out traffic management must be suitably trained and VicRoads pre-qualified. Choosing an experienced traffic planning company will ensure you receive a professional worry-free service that will tailor the traffic management requirements to your job. What you can do, though, is prepare as much information as possible so that we can put your plan together swiftly and so that it meets all of these layers of compliance so you can get fast approval and get to work. Our team will often ask the client to explain or mark up their activities, area of works, different stages of works, etc. so that we can better understand their requirements and prepare an appropriate Traffic Management Plan for your circumstances.

The Traffic Plans Company specialise in quality traffic management plans and planning around Melbourne and other areas of Australia.