Moving a Traffic Control Company Off Paper: A 30-Day Example Plan

Paperless traffic control is achievable in about a month if you change one form at a time. Start with an inventory of every form, load clean crew, client and equipment data, pilot with one crew, run paper and digital side by side for a short fixed period, then stop paper on a set date. The order matters more than the software.

This guide sets out a 30-day example plan, a form inventory you can copy and a worked example of a company that nearly stalled at the cut-over. For what to look for in a system, see our guide to traffic control software.

Days 1–3: inventory every form

You cannot replace what you have not listed. Walk through a full week of operations and collect every piece of paper: the forms in the utes, the clipboards at the depot, the spreadsheets in the office and the folders in the filing cabinet.

For each form, write down who fills it in, who reads it, what it is used for and what would happen if it disappeared.

Example scenario: a traffic control company with about 25 controllers and one depot does this exercise and finds 14 forms. Here is part of their inventory.

Two forms turned out to be unused duplicates and were simply dropped. Removing forms nobody reads is the cheapest win in any paperless project.

Days 4–10: load clean data

A new system with bad data fails fast. Before any crew member is invited, load and check:

• Crew: names, mobile numbers, emails, roles, and every ticket and licence with expiry dates where they apply. In NSW, SafeWork NSW traffic control work training cards do not carry an expiry date, but refresher rules, white cards, driver licences and inductions still need tracking.
• Clients and sites: company details, site contacts, docket signers and regular meeting points.
• Vehicles and equipment: each ute, trailer and item of plant with rego, insurance and inspection dates. See our guide to equipment inspection logs.
• Rates and settings: time bands, minimums and fatigue limits from your risk assessment.

Have a second person check a sample of every list against the source documents. In the worked example, the office found three crew members with expired driver licences and one trailer with no rego record at all. Finding these during data loading is a benefit in itself.

Decide at this stage who owns each list after launch. Crew records usually belong to the office administrator, equipment to the yard supervisor and client details to whoever takes bookings. If nobody owns a list, it starts drifting out of date within weeks, and the crew quickly lose trust in a system that offers them a shift at a site that no longer exists or shows a ticket that has already been renewed.

Days 11–17: pilot with one crew

Pick one crew with a respected team leader and use the system for real work:

1. Send their shift offers through the app. Keep texts as a backup only.
2. Have them submit timesheets and client dockets in the app.
3. Keep paper timesheets running in parallel for this week only.
4. Compare paper and digital hours each day. They should match.
5. Meet briefly at the end of each day: what was confusing, slow or missing?
6. Fix the problems before expanding. Usually these are form fields, missing site data or login issues.

The point of the pilot is to find problems while only one crew is affected. Our article on digital timesheets and dockets covers what a good docket should capture.

Days 18–24: roll out to everyone and run in parallel

Now invite the rest of the crew:

• Run a ten-minute session at morning pick-up, with the pilot team leader showing their own phone.
• Make sure everyone logs in before leaving the depot.
• Keep paper as a backup for one week, but have team leaders enter any paper timesheet into the app the same day.
• Check daily: who has not logged in, whose timesheets are still on paper and why.
• Add the second wave of forms in week 4: pre-start checks, SWMS sign-on and equipment defects.

Work on or next to a road used by traffic is high-risk construction work, so a SWMS is required before work starts, and the sign-on record matters. Our guide to SWMS for traffic control explains what it must include. Check current WHS requirements with SafeWork NSW or your state regulator.

Days 25–30: cut over and remove the paper

Parallel running has to end, or it never will.

1. Announce the date. "From Monday, paper timesheets and dockets are no longer accepted, except in a documented outage."
2. Remove the forms. Take the paper pads out of the utes and the depot. If the forms are still there, they will still be used.
3. Document the fallback. If the app is down or a phone fails, the team leader uses one emergency paper form and enters it in the app the same day.
4. Check the first week closely. Look at every timesheet and docket, follow up on gaps the same day.
5. Close out the old process. Payroll and invoicing now run only from the digital records.

Worked example: the cut-over that nearly stalled

Example scenario, continued: by day 24, the company has every crew member logged in, and digital timesheets match paper in the parallel week. On day 25, the operations manager announces that paper stops the following Monday.

The problem. On the Monday, two team leaders still hand in paper dockets. The client on a long-running civil project had told them that the principal contractor's site office wants signed paper dockets for its own files.

The fix. The operations manager calls the principal contractor's project engineer. The engineer is happy to receive a copy of the signed digital docket by email each day, which they can file. The team leaders send the docket copies from the system at the end of each shift. Paper stops on that project two days later.

What went wrong underneath. The inventory on days 1–3 listed client dockets but did not ask clients what they needed. The company adds a step to its process: for every regular client, confirm in writing how they want dockets delivered.

What gets recorded: the client's written acceptance of digital dockets, the date paper stopped for each form, and the documented fallback. If an auditor asks how dockets moved from paper to digital, the answer is on file.

Keeping old records and protecting new ones

Going paperless does not mean throwing paper away.

• Keep existing paper records for as long as your obligations require. Employee time and wages records must be kept for seven years under the Fair Work Act; check current requirements with the Fair Work Ombudsman. WHS, contract and insurance obligations may require other records for other periods. Ask your accountant and check your contracts before disposing of anything.
• Scan selectively. Scanning everything is expensive. Scan what you are likely to need, such as ticket copies and recent dockets for open disputes.
• Protect digital records. Crew records include personal information, such as phone numbers, licence details and signatures. Limit access to those who need it, use strong passwords and know how to export your data. The OAIC has guidance on privacy obligations.
• Do not edit signed records silently. Corrections should be added with the reason, who made them and when.

The 30-day checklist

Print this and tick it off:

• Days 1–3: every form listed with owner, reader, purpose and replacement.
• Duplicate or unused forms dropped.
• Clients asked what docket and inspection formats they accept.
• Days 4–10: crew, tickets, clients, sites, vehicles, equipment and rates loaded and checked.
• Days 11–17: one pilot crew on shift offers, timesheets and dockets; paper and digital compared daily.
• Days 18–24: everyone invited and logged in; parallel running for one week only.
• Week 4: pre-starts, SWMS sign-on and defect reports added.
• Days 25–30: paper stop date announced; forms removed from utes and depot; fallback documented.
• Old records stored securely for the required period.

Once this is done, the next step is the forms you left for later, such as site diaries and inspections. Our guide to traffic control site diaries is a useful starting point.

Next steps

Spend the first three days on the inventory; the rest of the plan follows from it. If you want shift offers, timesheets, dockets, pre-starts, SWMS sign-on and ticket and equipment tracking in one place, TrafWise is built for traffic control companies making exactly this move.