How To Keep Safe On-Site With Crowd Traffic Management

Keeping staff, visitors, and yourself safe is imperative when it comes to running a successful construction site.  There are innumerable risks enclosed within a construction site, and it’s your job to ensure everyone is kept safe.

The frequent use of vehicles and heavy-duty machinery means there can be danger around every corner. To avoid this danger and keep everyone on-site out of harm’s way, you need to implement effective crowd traffic management.

To successfully keep everyone safe on-site, you need to plan effectively, keep pedestrians and machinery separate and making sure everyone on site knows what they’re doing and is qualified to do so.

In this blog post, experts in Site Fencing Services will outline how you can utilise a construction traffic management plan to make your site as safe as possible. We’ll be exploring every aspect of on-site safety you need to consider. By the end of this post, you will know how to construct a site traffic management plan for optimum safety.

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Planning 

For a successful site traffic management plan, you need to be planning ahead.  Organising a construction site is a huge task, which is why you must give yourself adequate time to ensure all the correct safety precautions are in place. When designing your construction site, you should be considering your next two points: how will you keep vehicles and people at a safe distance, and how will you ensure everyone knows what they’re doing.

In the design phase, this planning will involve mapping out the layout of your site.  You need to make sure people and vehicles are kept as far away from each other as possible. To do this, you will likely want to buy or rent crowd control barriers. Crowd control barriers signal to both vehicles and pedestrians the areas they should be in. For practical planning, work out how many barriers you will need for your entire site and place an order for them.

In addition to this, consider where you’re going to source staff and workers. Make sure you find reputable and qualified employees before the project starts. Hiring experienced and knowledgeable workers in advance eliminates hiring incompetent staff and potentially putting others at risk when the construction site is in use.

After planning these crucial elements of your project, you need to undertake a risk assessment. A risk assessment will highlight any potential dangers on your construction site before people begin working.  

Separating

As mentioned previously, separating pedestrians and vehicles is essential. Pedestrians and vehicles need the ability to move around safely, completing tasks without fear of accidents. Effective transport management helps prevent accidents and injuries. Separating vehicles and people are the number one priority on construction sites.

Crowd control barriers are the most effective way of implementing this separation. These heavy-duty metal barriers can signal separate exits and entrances for pedestrians and vehicles. They can form walkways, crossings and block off unsafe areas.

Combining signage with your use of barriers can signal to people rules and regulations on-site. One example of traffic rules you should have on your construction site is one way systems. One way systems reduce collisions and eliminate the need to reverse. Reversing leads to reduced visibility and can result in serious accidents. Signs also ensure any visitors to your site quickly know the rules and regulations they need to follow.

Vehicles and pedestrians should never have to cross paths on site. A practical construction traffic management plan uses barriers and signs to ensure each element of the construction site is kept separate.

Visible barriers and signage prove you took the necessary safety precautions if any kind of accident does happen on your construction site.

Standards

When working on a construction site or employing workers for your site, there are standards that need to be met.

When you first embarked on your construction traffic management plan, you should have planned where you were going to source your workers. Making sure your workers are working to a high standard throughout your project is essential. You need to make sure employees are working efficiently, respecting rules and implementing health and safety precautions during their time on site.

Part of your site traffic management plan needs to focus on the competence and abilities of your workers and visitors.  This means you should be checking permits and licenses before any work takes place. You must provide training to drivers and operators of machinery prior to them working independently. If you have visitors or you hire as the project develops, you need to manage these individuals with training and document checking. It’s also crucial that you ensure they understand the rules and regulations set out by your crowd control barriers and signs.

CCTV and mirrors, vehicle marshalls and high-vis clothing all need to be included as part of your construction traffic management plan too. 

Efficient planning, vehicle separation and maintaining standards are the key components to an effective site traffic management plan. As a site runner, you need to design your construction site so that safety is the top priority. Serious injury and even death are frequent occurrences on poorly maintained construction sites. If you falter on any of these aspects and let the health and safety standards on your construction site decrease, you are putting those on your site and your project at risk. 

By following these simple steps, you can make sure your construction site is safe for the duration of your project. 

For more information about Pedestrian barriers, click here.

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