Optimize construction with a traffic management plan checklist

What is a traffic management plan?

A traffic management plan (TMP) is used to enhance safety protocols and minimize vehicular or equipment-related risks at construction zones. Considering that it’s one of the high-risk workplaces where people and machinery will often overlap, accidents can happen from groundworks until finishing works. If the activities within the site are not properly controlled, on-site employees, visitors, and the public can be exposed to risks.

The TMP’s primary purpose is to ensure that workers and the general public are safe from vehicles and construction equipment by managing traffic within and outside work sites. Typically, a traffic control plan template is used to evaluate the presence of vehicular hazards in the work area, worker compliance on safety precautions for improved traffic controls, and the overall protection of all personnel and incoming traffic.

In this article, the following points are explained:

1. Five main goals of the traffic management plan

2. Promote a safer work site with digital checklists

Five Main Goals of Traffic Management Plan for Construction Sites

Because construction sites can be busy with deliveries, have multiple pieces of machinery, and guests all requiring access, traffic management must be in place to avoid potentially disastrous accidents to everyone within the vicinity.

To achieve this, companies should strive to achieve five primary goals in the implementation of a traffic management plan:

1. Keep people away from moving plants and machinery

One of the easiest ways to prevent people from suffering injuries on your site is to keep people and vehicles as far away from each other. Although this can get a little tricky, it can be done through proper planning. Take a look at your construction zones and note the areas where your employees and machinery are moving around to get to their designated work areas. If you see any areas overlapping or close contact is possible, you need to set proper measures to keep their routes separate.

Here are some of the things you can do:

1. Assign a separate entrance and exit gateway for pedestrians and vehicles.
2. Provide an unobstructed and leveled pedestrian walkway that offers direct routes so they don’t have to step into the vehicle route.
3. Designate specific parking areas outside of the construction zone.
4. Designate exclusion zones where people are not allowed in machine-only zones and vehicles are not allowed in pedestrian-only zones.
5. Install barriers between pedestrian walks and vehicular roadways.
6. Make sure all walkways and roadways have appropriate signs, proper lighting, and enough visibility to avoid a collision.

2. Make sure routes are clear and unobstructed

One of the main things checked during an inspection is the organization of walkways and crossways. You must keep access routes free of obstruction so drivers won’t have to look for alternative ways and you can maintain control of all movement.

Here are some things you can implement:

1. Integrate into your layout designated travel paths for vehicles. For example, you can add exit and entry points and haul routes for materials and debris.
2. Implement an efficient delivery unloading and loading system.
3. Plan out clear routes for a seamless and visible drive onto road traffic when exiting the site.

3. Minimize vehicle movements and avoid reverses

It’s a given that traffic in a construction site will be unavoidable, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t be reduced to as little as possible. For example, designing the site layout optimally will entail putting the storage area close to the entrance help, so the amount of traffic that needs to cross the site is reduced. The fewer vehicles on site, the safer it is.

The same goes for reverses: this is one of the high-risk visibility issues in construction sites that should be avoided entirely if possible.

You can limit the number of vehicles on-site through:

1. Plan delivery schedules along with predictable vehicle movements.
2. Use one-way systems and turning circles so vehicles won’t have to reverse.
3. Provide designated parking spaces for your employees and visitors at a space considerably far from the site.
4. Regulate daily vehicle entries.

In the event you cannot eliminate the possibility of reverses, here are some things you can consider:

1. Use mirrors, warning alarms, cameras, and sensors.
2. Assign a signal person wearing high-visibility clothing to assist the driver when maneuvering. The signal person must always remain in the driver’s line of sight at all times.
3. Inspect the swing radius, articulation points, and overhead load movement to ensure no workers within the vicinity.

4. Using traffic signs and ensuring maximum visibility on site

Workers and pedestrians should always be alerted to potential risks associated with vehicles entering and exiting the construction site. For this reason, it’s a must that the workplace is equipped with clearly lit signs and reasonable lighting throughout so workers always have maximum visibility. The goal is to reduce blindspots to manage risks effectively.

Here are some control measures you can implement:

1. Install visual warning devices like flashing lights on mobile plants so pedestrians and workers are always aware of movements.
2. Put up lit, visible, and unobstructed signs to increase pedestrian awareness of hazards.
3. Establish a safety work protocol to pause work at times when vision is impaired.
4. Ensuring that only trained or certified workers are granted permission to maneuver machinery.
5. Wear high-visibility, reflective clothing.

5. Maintain, inspect, and educate

Setting safety protocols are only as good as the level of awareness of your workers. So, before starting any work in traffic management, make it a point to conduct proper training of your personnel regarding the importance of TMP, potential workplace hazards, risk controls, and proper vehicle operation to minimize accidents.

More often than not, lack of information and inexperience is the most dangerous kind of work hazard in construction sites.

Promote a safer work site with easy-to-use traffic management plan checklists

Setting in place effective traffic management plans can be tedious work. It needs frequent inspections and monitoring to ensure compliance is upheld at the highest standards and work gets done on time without safety problems.

With Lumiform, you can forget about complex Excel sheets and misplaced inspection documentation. Our top-notch inspect app is designed to make conducting safety protocols easy and efficient so that you can streamline your traffic management system.

With a our digital checklists and mobile app, you can:

• Create checklists in just a few minutes with our form builder and implement protocols in no time.
• Conveniently perform your audits using checklists right on your phone with 24/7 access to your traffic management plan templates, whether online or offline.
• Consolidate all inspection documentation in one place and generate automatically in-depth reports in just minutes.
• Improve your safety coordination by allowing your workers to upload photos, raise concerns, and solve issues through the app.
• Create users for each key personnel so safety is consistently monitored in one platform.