Building a temporary construction site can be a complicated task, primarily when it is located in a busy, urban area. Before you are even allowed to start your project, you have to prove to the local government that you are taking the right measures to guide traffic safely around your building site. How do you set up a traffic management plan for your temporary construction site and how do you choose the right demarcation products? In this blog, I explain how you can effectively increase the safety in and outside your construction site with adequate traffic management.
The importance of traffic management around construction sites
As a constructor, you are responsible for managing the traffic around your construction site. When starting a new project, you have to know how you are going to redirect the traffic and create as little inconvenience for residents as possible. These choices have to be recorded in a traffic management plan. This plan has to be submitted to and approved by the local government. They will judge whether you are doing enough to ensure safety around your construction site.
When traffic management around a construction site is not taken seriously, the consequences can be quite severe. Not only will insufficient demarcation result in large traffic jams and increased hindrance, but the risk of serious incidents happening also increases substantially. For this reason, the local government will not allow you to start building when you’re traffic management plan does not meet their requirements.
Increasing safety inside the construction site
This means that as a constructor you benefit from proper traffic management. Not only because it helps you meet the government’s requirements, but also because traffic management enables you to increase safety inside your construction site.
Inside the building site, it can be quite busy. Trucks and vehicles are entering and leaving your building site while simultaneously your employees are busy moving materials, demolishing old constructions or building up new ones. Since pedestrians and vehicles move around simultaneously in a limited area, good traffic management is necessary to keep your employees safe.
Managing the traffic inside the building site is your responsibility. The local government will only check if you manage the traffic around the site, but will not verify if you use the right traffic demarcations within your building site. Therefore, it is your responsibility to protect your employees from possible traffic incidents.
Choosing the right demarcation for your construction site
Traffic management might start out with a plan, but there are more steps you have to take to guide traffic smoothly around your construction site. Choosing right demarcation materials help you to effectively increase safety both outside and inside the building site.
There are different types of traffic demarcation materials that you can use for effective traffic management. Barriers and blocks are the most common traffic demarcation materials used at building sites. Both products are preventative products and help you to mark of a certain area and prevent accidents happening inside and outside your building site.
When choosing traffic demarcation products for your building sites, there are a few characteristics that you should pay attention to. First of all, the blocks or barriers may have to pass the crash barrier test successfully. This means that if a car would crash into this block or barrier, it should be heavy enough to absorb the impact. Secondly, your demarcations should stand out: choose bright colors so even in the evening the barriers are still visible for drivers. Finally, you should have to possibility to interlock the blocks or barriers so you can create a strong wall of barriers without any open areas that could cause weak spots in your partition.
Download our fact sheet to discover all the options for traffic demarcation:
What can you do to improve safety around and inside your site?
Safety is paramount both inside and around your building site. As a constructor, you are responsible for protecting both your employees and local residents from the risks and dangers that your construction site elicits. At Heras, we take safety very seriously and like to help you create the safest possible version of your construction site.
For that reason, we have a large selection of traffic demarcation products that you can use to effectively manage the traffic inside and around your construction site. Our blocks and barriers meet the highest safety standards and stand out - even in the dark. Want to know more about our traffic demarcation solutions? Learn more about effectively securing your temporary construction site in our product brochure.
