Should Builders Run Their Own Traffic Control? In-House vs Outsourced

In-house traffic control can save builders money on frequent, simple, low-speed jobs, but it is more than sending two labourers on a course. You take on the cards or accreditation, plans, equipment, SWMS, inspections, fatigue and records. For busy roads, night works, specialist plant or complex staging, outsourcing to a traffic control company usually wins.

This guide is for builders, civil contractors and trades businesses weighing up whether to train their own people or keep hiring a traffic control company. It sets out what in-house traffic control really involves, the state requirements to check, a cost comparison, a decision table and a worked example of a builder with regular driveway jobs.

What in-house traffic control really involves

When you run your own traffic control, your business becomes responsible for every part of it. That includes:

• Training and cards. Each worker who controls traffic or installs the arrangement needs the training, card or accreditation your state requires, and refreshers when due.
• Plans. Every job needs a traffic guidance scheme prepared by a suitably qualified person. That can be someone in your business with the right qualification, or an external designer.
• Approvals. You apply to the road manager, or make sure someone does.
• Equipment. Signs, stands, cones, bats, radios, lights and barriers, kept clean, legible and in good repair, with damaged items replaced.
• SWMS. Work on or next to a road used by traffic is high-risk construction work, so a SWMS is required before work starts.
• Inspections and records. Start and end of shift inspections and checks during the shift, recorded on the project's forms.
• Fatigue and supervision. Rostering within your fatigue limits, and someone competent supervising.
• Insurance. Confirming your policies cover your workers doing traffic control on public roads.

If that sounds like running a small traffic control business inside your building business, it is. Our guide to starting a traffic control company shows the full picture from the other side.

State requirements to check first

Requirements differ, so check your state before you train anyone.

For NSW, our guide to the traffic control ticket in NSW explains the card types and courses. Check the current rules with SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria or Transport and Main Roads, as relevant.

Some clients and road managers also require traffic control to be done by a prequalified or accredited company. If most of your work is for those clients, in-house may not be an option for those jobs.

The real cost comparison

Builders often compare a traffic control invoice against a labourer's wage. That misses most of the cost. A fair comparison looks like this.

In-house mainly saves the provider's margin, minimum charges and travel. It adds training, equipment, admin and the cost of having builders standing on a bat rather than building.

Decision table: in-house or outsource?

Our guide to traffic control for small jobs helps you decide whether a small job needs a full crew at all.

The table is a starting point, not a rule. A low-speed street outside a school at pick-up time, or a quiet road with a blind crest, can be harder than it looks on a map. Let the person preparing the plan tell you what the site needs, then decide who is best placed to deliver it.

Worked example: a builder with weekly driveway jobs

Here is how the decision plays out for a typical small civil builder. This is an example scenario with made-up figures to show the method.

The business. A small civil builder pours about 40 driveway crossovers a year on quiet residential streets. Each job needs a footpath closure and some traffic management for the concrete truck. The builder currently books two controllers from a traffic company for each pour.

Step 1: the outsourced cost (made-up figures). Using a made-up rate of $85 per controller hour and the 4-hour minimum, each pour costs 2 × 4 × $85 = $680 before vehicle and travel, or about $27,200 for 40 pours.

Step 2: the in-house cost. The builder lists what in-house would cost: courses and time off for three workers (so one is always available), a set of signs, stands, cones and bats, storage, a plan for each job from a suitably qualified person, SWMS and inspection forms, insurance confirmation, and the wages of two workers who are not building while they control traffic. The builder asks the insurer and the state regulator what applies before buying anything.

Step 3: the decision. The numbers work for the routine crossovers on quiet streets. The builder decides on a hybrid: in-house for routine crossovers that fit a standard arrangement prepared by a qualified designer, and a traffic company for anything on a busy road, near a school, at night or needing more than the standard set-up.

Step 4: what goes wrong. On the third in-house job, one trained worker is off sick. The foreman puts the remaining trained worker on the bat and asks him to "help with the screed between trucks". During one truck reversal, nobody is watching the footpath, and a pedestrian with a pram walks into the work area. The foreman stops the work. Nobody is hurt, but the near miss is reported and recorded.

Step 5: the fix. The builder sets two rules. A person on traffic control does nothing else. If two trained people are not available, the builder books the traffic company instead of improvising. The near miss goes into the toolbox talk, and the builder trains a fourth worker as a back-up. Our guide to near-miss reporting shows what a useful report includes.

What gets recorded. A register of each worker's cards and refresher dates, the plan for each job, the SWMS sign-on, the start and end of shift inspections, equipment checks and the near-miss report.

Setting up in-house traffic control properly

If the numbers and the rules both support doing it yourself, set it up as a system, not a favour from whoever is free. A practical starting list:

1. Pick the job types. Write down exactly which jobs you will do in-house, for example footpath closures and driveway pours on quiet local streets, and which always go to a traffic company.
2. Train enough people. Plan for leave and sickness. One trained person is not a capability.
3. Keep a register. Record each worker's cards, accreditation, refresher dates and expiry dates where they apply, and check it before rostering.
4. Get the plans right. Have a suitably qualified person prepare each plan, or a standard arrangement that has been checked against the site before every use.
5. Build a standard kit. Signs, stands, weights, cones, bats, radios and PPE, kept together and checked before each job. Label each item so damaged or missing gear is obvious.
6. Use the same paperwork every time. Pre-start, SWMS sign-on, start-of-shift inspection, inspections during the shift, end-of-shift inspection and a site diary note.
7. Brief the whole site. Operators, truck drivers and labourers need to know where the controller is and that the controller does nothing else.
8. Review the first few jobs. Have someone experienced look at the set-up and records on the first jobs and fix gaps early.
9. Keep a provider on call. Agree a back-up arrangement with a traffic control company for days you cannot staff a job safely.

Common mistakes when builders go in-house

• Dual roles. The controller is also the labourer, spotter or truck driver.
• One trained person. Leave and sick days leave you without cover.
• No plan. Using the last job's layout on a different street.
• Tired equipment. Faded signs, broken stands and missing weights.
• No records. Inspections done but not written down.
• Forgetting refreshers. Cards and accreditation have their own renewal and refresher rules by state.

Next steps

Count how many jobs you outsource in a year, list which would suit a standard arrangement on a quiet street, and check your state's requirements before you train anyone. If you decide to keep outsourcing, our guide on how to hire a traffic control company lists the questions to ask, and TrafWise helps traffic control companies give builders a booking link, signed dockets and clear records.