Site Specific Traffic Management Plans vs Generic Traffic Management Plans

Our traffic engineers often come across companies which rely on the services of a traffic management company to prepare a site specific traffic management plan for every occasion they are required to deploy traffic management on a road.

A site specific traffic management plan as the name suggests, is a traffic management plan prepared  based on conditions specific to the site in consideration. Whilst site specific traffic management plans are not brand-new information to anyone involved in the industry; use of generic traffic management plans is often an untouched territory.

A generic traffic management plan on the other hand is a rather simple traffic management plan such as operating a small worksite on the roadside with a work vehicle and flashing lights but is not prepared to reflect site specific conditions. The generic traffic management plan: if meeting its own set of requirements and passes the risk assessment, can be deployed on any chosen work site.

Benefits of a Generic Traffic Management Plan

A pre-prepared set of generic traffic management plans can help your business in saving time required to get a site-specific traffic management plan drawn up, the time it requires to engage a traffic management contractor and all costs associated with these steps. Believe it or not, this is a huge cost.

Austroads Guide to Temporary Traffic Management lists out a series of work activities that could be classified under short term low impact worksites or in other words, that are most suitable to be managed under generic traffic management plans.

• Works that involve minimal plant, equipment and road workers.
• Works involving a frequently changing work area (e.g. grass cutting, shoulder grading, minor pavement maintenance and survey work)
• Works that are of a short duration (less than a single shift but generally much shorter)
• Works located sufficiently clear of traffic that only minimal warning is required to advise road users of the presence of workers.

If your typical worksite fits into one or more of the above, you could be implementing generic traffic management plans and saving a lot of money.

Clause 4.4 of Australian Standards AS1742.3 specifies the use of simple traffic management plans as to allow certain short-term low impact works to be carried out without the use of fully protected static work sites or mobile works convoys which could other lead to significant work inefficiencies.

There we go! The keyword to focus is “significant work inefficiencies”. Imagine having to get a traffic management plan prepared, approved by the road authority and having to engage a traffic management contractor to implement traffic management, just so you can do some surveying work along the roadside on the nature strip for 20 minutes?

Continue reading to see how RedSquare Traffic have helped two iconic organizations in Victoria to help save immense costs by implementing RedSquare Traffic’s customized generic traffic management plan package in place of designing a traffic management plan for every single worksite.

Case Study: RedSquare’s Traffic Management Consultation for Peracon

Peracon is a leading brand in Australia that specializes in the design of solutions for infrastructure owners including HV Power, Telecommunication Systems and Transport. In the context of traffic management, Peracon was previously getting a traffic management plan prepared for every little worksite which causes only a negligeable disruption to the flow of traffic such as a parking a vehicle on the side of the road with flashing lights.

As with most companies that reach out to our traffic engineers, Peracon’s questions were also very similar.

• Is there a way we can produce a set of traffic management plans which we can just implement every time we work on roads?
• Are our current traffic management procedures compliant?
• How do we utilise a very simple traffic management plan for a 5-to-10-minute job?

Our expert traffic engineers devised a well-thought-out solution to address these concerns and of course, in-line with specifications of Australian Standards AS1742.3; Road Management Act and Austroads Guide to Temporary Traffic Management.

As we worked with Peracon in a lot more detail, we understood that all of their typical worksites/work activities fall into the category of short-term low impact worksites.

Our experienced traffic engineers prepared a set of traffic management plans all suitably applicable under short term low impact worksites as generic traffic management plans. The traffic management plan package was also complemented with an extensive guideline document providing the background conditions as well as a logical checklist procedure that tells you which traffic management plan to use when.

Not only Peracon, we are also assisting more and more clients in Victoria and all across Australia including Phillip Island Nature Parks in employing this significant cost saving strategy.

For a novice in traffic management and traffic engineering, it sounds complex, and we understand. You are an expert in your own field, leave traffic management planning to us. RedSquare’s generic traffic management plan package can help reduce unnecessary costs of your business.

Reach out to our enthusiastic team of traffic engineers to learn more about traffic management plans.