Traffic management plan: the site plan, the road work plan, and a free template

A traffic management plan sets out how a workplace keeps people and vehicles apart: vehicle and plant routes, walkways, exclusion zones, speed limits, loading areas and reversing rules. On a construction site, depot or yard it is a WHS document the business writes itself. The free Humanz template below is that plan, in Excel, no email gate.

A second document shares the name, and mixing them up is how a laydown yard template ends up running cones on a council road. A road work zone traffic management plan covers work on or near a public road, follows the road authority’s rules built around AS 1742.3, and must be prepared by a person holding the qualification that state requires. The template on this page is not that plan.

This is general information, not safety advice. Where a principal contractor or client runs its own traffic plan, theirs wins.

Two plans with the same name

The quick test is where the vehicles are. Behind your fence, the plan is yours to write. On a public road, it isn’t.

Safe Work Australia’s traffic management guidance says a site plan “outlines how you will manage traffic risks” and may cover the flow of pedestrian and vehicle movements, how often they are expected to interact, the layout of barriers, walkways and signs, and how short term, mobile and complex traffic situations are handled. On the road side, Safe Work Australia classes working on or next to a public road as high risk construction work, so a SWMS is needed before it starts, on top of whatever the road authority asks for.

Plenty of jobs need both, and the site plan should name the road plan and who prepared it.

Who can prepare a road work zone plan, by state

New South Wales. Transport for NSW published its Traffic Control at Work Sites standard, TS 05492:1.0, on 25 June 2026, covering temporary traffic management on all NSW public roads. Its traffic control work training page says traffic management plans, including traffic guidance schemes, must be designed and implemented by competent persons only, and lists three SafeWork NSW courses: traffic controller, implement traffic control plans, and prepare a work zone traffic management plan (PWZ), which covers designing, amending or inspecting the plan. Workers hold a SafeWork NSW training card for the type of work.

Queensland. Transport and Main Roads’ traffic management training page names Traffic Management Design as the course for people developing traffic management plans and traffic guidance schemes under MUTCD Part 3 and the Queensland Guide to Temporary Traffic Management.

Western Australia. Main Roads WA’s working on roads page says anyone conducting works or events that may impact traffic or pedestrian access within the road reserve must hold a current traffic management certificate of accreditation, with Worksite and Advanced Worksite Traffic Management among the levels. Plans involving “complex traffic management arrangements” must be reviewed and endorsed by an accredited Roadworks Traffic Manager.

Elsewhere, ask the road authority or council. If the job touches a public road, budget for a qualified traffic management provider. A supervisor with a good template is not one.

What goes in a site traffic management plan

The plan is a drawing plus the rules that go with it. Safe Work Australia’s hazard prompts make a good brief for the site walk: where people and vehicles interact, blind spots, poor visibility, vehicle types and heights, and where vehicles load, park, enter and leave. Then read the near-miss reports. A truck that nearly reversed over someone last month has already marked where the plan is thin.

Controls go top down, from removing the plant, through isolating pedestrians from vehicles and fitting reversing cameras, to training and supervision last. A plan that relies on “be aware of plant” has started at the bottom.

• Site layout and routes. One drawing for this stage: gates, haul roads, plant routes, laydown, parking, office, crib, toilets and the walkways between them. One-way loops remove most reversing.
• Separation and exclusion zones. Barriers where walkways and vehicle routes run side by side, and an exclusion zone around each operating machine with an entry rule, usually that nobody enters until the operator has seen them, stopped and signalled.
• Speed limits. A number per area, signed at the gate and wherever it changes, and how it is enforced.
• Loading and unloading. Where, what vehicles, what hours, who directs it, where the driver stands while the load moves.
• Reversing and spotters. Where reversing is allowed, where it needs a spotter, who that is, and how they talk to the operator.
• Pedestrian crossings. Where walkways cross vehicle routes, how each is marked or gated, and whether it is lit for a winter 5 am start.
• Deliveries and visitors. Delivery hours, where trucks wait, who meets them at the gate.
• Signage. Every sign, marked on the drawing.
• Communication. Radio channels, how drivers are briefed on arrival, and how a change reaches the crew.
• Emergency access. The route an ambulance takes to the furthest work area, who keeps it clear, and where emergency services are met. A laydown creeping across that route is one of the quietest ways a plan stops being true.
• Review triggers. The changes that reopen the plan, written into it, so nobody has to decide whether a new gate counts.

Download the free site traffic management plan template

Download the Humanz site traffic management plan template (Excel, .xlsx). No sign-up, no email gate. It opens in any current version of Excel and imports into Google Sheets (File, then Import).

A spreadsheet is the fallback, not how we would run this. Humanz is a workforce management app, and in the app the plan and its checklist become custom forms completed on a phone and stored against the job, with the site induction that briefs the crew on it recorded against each worker. We publish this template anyway, free and with no sign-up, because a good sheet beats a blank page and not every crew is ready for software. If yours is, see how Humanz runs civil construction crews.

What’s in it

• Site TMP sheet. Site details, version, hours and traffic contact, then a block for each part of the plan above. A public road block asks whether any work touches a public road and, if so, records the road plan’s reference, who prepared it and their qualification. Sign-off for preparer, reviewer and approver.
• Hazard and control checklist sheet. Twenty-five checks with a Yes, No or N/A drop-down, the action, its owner and the date closed. A No with no owner turns red.
• Review log sheet. Each revision, what triggered it, who approved it and when the crew were told. No “workers informed” date turns the row red.
• Briefing record sheet. Who was briefed on which version, by whom and when, delivery drivers and visitors included.
• How to use sheet. One page, including what the template does not do.

What it does not do. It is not a road work zone traffic management plan or traffic guidance scheme, it is not built to AS 1742.3 or any road authority’s standard, and it is not something to submit to a road authority. Nothing is prefilled with distances or speeds, because those come from your site, your plant and your risk assessment.

Who prepares it, who approves it, and how it stays current

Someone who knows the site and the plant writes it, usually the site manager or supervisor with the safety adviser, after walking the site at its busiest hour rather than 2 pm on a Friday. Ask the operator who has backed that loader out of the same bay forty times where the blind spot is.

On a construction project the principal contractor approves it. Its WHS management plan must carry the site rules and how people are told about them, and WorkSafe Queensland’s list of its duties includes managing the risks of plant and traffic, which belong to the site as a whole rather than to any subcontractor’s SWMS. So the traffic plan sits inside that plan or is referenced from it by version, and a subcontractor’s own JSA or SWMS covers the task.

The plan only exists for the crew once they have been told it. The site induction is where every worker, labour hire worker, subbie and regular delivery driver learns the routes, the exclusion zone rule and the speed limit. The prestart is where today’s change gets said out loud: the east gate is shut, the zone under the crane boom is closed. A changed plan nobody briefed is the old plan with a new date on it.

Sites move every week, so write the review triggers into the plan:

• a new stage, gate or haul route
• new mobile plant, or plant working somewhere new
• changed delivery volumes or hours, or night work starting
• a near miss, an incident, or a worker raising a problem with a route
• a scheduled review if nothing else has triggered one

Each review gets a line in the log: what changed, who approved it, when the crew were told. The WHS management plan must be reviewed whenever the arrangements change and kept until the project is done, a sensible minimum for the traffic plan inside it.

Where the paper version breaks

The drawing is two stages old. The haul road moved in week six and the plan on the office wall still shows the old one. The redraw lost to everything else on the supervisor’s list.

Nobody can say who was told. After a near miss the question is whether the operator and the pedestrian knew that week’s route. A signed induction from March, for a different drawing, does not answer it.

The spotter is a role, not a person. The plan says “spotter required in the loading bay”, Tuesday’s roster has nobody in that seat, and the truck reverses anyway.

Plant turns up that the plan never heard of. If the incident report is the first document to mention the hired excavator, the plan has failed.

Where Humanz fits

Humanz is a workforce management platform with a custom form builder, and the traffic plan, the hazard checklist and the briefing record are forms it can carry. Your admin builds them once from this workbook or the principal contractor’s layout, with mandatory questions, drop-downs, conditional sections, and photo and signature capture. Crews complete them on phones, offline if needed, and each submission is timestamped and stored against the job and the worker. The plan can sit in the document portal with version control, so the drawing a worker opens is the current one.

The roster carries the people side. Site inductions are recorded per site and per client, and compliance rules stop a shift booking a worker whose induction for that site is missing or expired. Tickets and the high risk work licence for the crane sit on the worker’s profile with expiry alerts. People and plant share one allocation board, so the hired excavator and its operator are on the job before Monday’s prestart.

Humanz does not prepare traffic management plans or traffic guidance schemes, and does not replace a qualified traffic management provider. It does not track vehicles or workers’ locations, does not use AI to assess anything, and does not give safety advice. If your traffic plan lives on the office wall and in the supervisor’s head, book a walkthrough and bring it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a traffic management plan?

A traffic management plan is a document that sets out how a workplace keeps people and vehicles apart, covering routes, barriers and exclusion zones, speed limits, loading areas, reversing rules, signage and emergency access. Work on or near a public road needs a different document, the road work zone traffic management plan, which follows the state road authority’s rules.

What should a traffic management plan include?

A site traffic management plan should include a current site drawing of vehicle routes, pedestrian walkways and gates, the barriers and exclusion zones that separate people from mobile plant, and speed limits for each area. It should also set out loading and unloading zones, reversing and spotter rules, pedestrian crossings, delivery arrangements, signage, how changes are communicated, emergency vehicle access, and the triggers that reopen the plan.

Who can prepare a traffic management plan?

A site traffic management plan can be prepared by a competent person the business chooses, usually the site manager or supervisor working with the safety adviser. A road work zone traffic management plan or traffic guidance scheme must be prepared by a person holding the qualification the state requires. In NSW that is the SafeWork NSW prepare a work zone traffic management plan training, in Queensland the Transport and Main Roads Traffic Management Design accreditation, and in Western Australia a Main Roads traffic management accreditation.

What is the difference between a traffic management plan and a traffic guidance scheme?

A traffic guidance scheme is one part of a road work zone traffic management plan. The plan covers the whole approach to managing traffic around the work, while the traffic guidance scheme sets out the signs and devices that implementers place on the road.

Is a traffic management plan a legal requirement in Australia?

A business with vehicles or mobile plant at its workplace must manage the traffic risks under WHS law, and a written traffic management plan is the standard way to show how. On a construction project the principal contractor manages traffic risks for the site as a whole through its WHS management plan and site rules. Work on or near a public road needs whatever plan and approval the road authority or council requires, and is high risk construction work that needs a safe work method statement.

How often should a site traffic management plan be reviewed?

A site traffic management plan should be reviewed whenever the site changes, with a scheduled review if nothing else has triggered one. Common triggers are a new stage, gate or haul route, new mobile plant, changed delivery hours, night work, a near miss or incident, and a worker raising a problem with a route.

Who approves a traffic management plan on a construction site?

On a construction project the principal contractor approves the site traffic management plan, because it has management or control of the site and sets the site rules in its WHS management plan. The plan either sits inside the WHS management plan or is referenced from it by version number. Subcontractors work to the site plan, and their own JSA or SWMS covers the risks of their task.