In order for local councils to maintain their road assets, it is necessary, when works are in progress, to establish Traffic Management plans that will keep council workers and road users safe. The challenge for councils is to have a system that is nimble and flexible but also keeps abreast of legislative requirements and changes.
GenEng was approached by Scenic Rim Regional Council (SRRC) and Cassowary Coast Regional Council (CCRC) to help them design and establish a temporary traffic management system for the delivery of maintenance works.
These systems were customised to suit the work that they do and the unique characteristics of their regions. These were designed in consultation with the Councils so that they were directly involved in the development and implementation of the systems.
More recent work for South Burnett Regional Council (SBRC) saw us make a change to the delivery of the system as more council staff have moved to using electronic devices in the field.
Approach
Nobody likes change, and developing these systems is all about changing organisational safety culture to meet current legislative requirements. To overcome this natural resistance to change, we established traffic management working groups consisting of key Council officers involved in traffic management.
Our engineer also held workshops with Council operational staff to determine what work activities they performed and how they delivered those. With this information, he developed a suite of generic traffic guideline schemes based on their particular requirements, and a process to determine what was the most appropriate scheme to adopt in any given circumstance. Finally, he ran implementation workshops to provide Council staff with both the opportunity for further feedback and improvement of the system, and to train them in its use.
For SBRC’s system, we developed a clickable, visually based decision-making process with links to relevant Traffic Guidance Scheme (TGS) drawings that workers could use on their tablets. We also undertook field training with Council’s workforce so that they could see the system in action and make suggestions for improvements.
Outcome
The consultative approach we used helped overcome any resistance to change, and we were able to hand over this system to Council for them to run and maintain—it became their system.
SRRC has given us very positive feedback and there has been a strong adoption of the system by Council staff. CCRC are currently self-implementing their system following the consultative system design phase.
Due to the field training at SBRC, they have seen a very strong up-take of the system, with very little resistance to change, and a much safer working environment for Council’s maintenance staff.