There's a belief changes to road cone use will help strike a better balance between safety and minimising disruption.
The Government's announced a new risk-based approach to temporary traffic management rather than requiring a certain number of cones per project.
NZTA will also have to publicly report on its total cone spending per quarter.
Temporary traffic management industry steering group chair Dave Tilton told Heather du Plessis-Allan this makes sense.
He said that for the most part the current system served its purpose, but it’s been identified that it's not getting the right about of TTM, which is what its purpose is.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How about the war on cones? Man, I am here
for this A The Transport Minister, Simeon Brown has started
the war. He's planning, he says, to roll out a
risk based approach to temporary traffic management, and he wants
to get n ZTA to release a quarterly report on
how much money they're actually spending on traffic management. He
says there are too many cones and the current approach
is out of control. Dave Tilton is the chair of
the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group and he joins
(00:22):
us now, hey.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Dave, hi, how are you doing well?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Thank you? Do you agree with him that there are
too many cones?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'd say in some places? Yeah, I mean ultimately it's
probably not that simple. Though. Cones ultimately serve a purpose
they're at all, and we are trying to keep people
safe in the road environment. That's road users and workers.
So it's absolutely true that that balance doesn't work sometimes
and there's an overuse of them. And really it comes
(00:50):
down to whether the risk has been assessed and it's
not quite matching how it's been treated.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, what so is it a problem? That is what
explains me what's going on here? Is that ZI turns
up to a site, assesses the risk and they're incorrectly
assessing the risk and then dumping too many cones there.
Or are the rules just so prescriptive that it doesn't
really matter what the risk is, they just end up
with too many cones.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I'd say it's more of the latter, and it's
it probably comes down to the system that we have
and have had for the last twenty plus years. So
it's a very prescriptive system and for the most part
it served its purpose. But it's certainly been identified and
in fact predates the current government. Is that method, that
process isn't really quite getting the right amount of TTM,
(01:34):
and the purpose is to get just the right amount
of TTM, So just the right amount so it's safe
but not too much that there's excess and there's waste,
but also not too little because of course that would
create safe stage.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Mate, aren't we far away from having too little in
terms of cones?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's collectively if you looked at across the system, Yeah,
probably true. But also there's still there isn't There is
still a responsibility by everyone who undertakes activity in the
road to make sure that people are safe. You know,
there's plus nine hundred more than nine hundred people killed
in TTM environments.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So the last on Ponsivy Road, right, they're doing some
work on pons Andbi road at the moment kind of
there by the intersection with williamsonab and I walked past
it today and I reckon those cones. I mean like,
I didn't measure it with my eyes, but I reckon
that those cones on reflection would be like thirty centimeters
away from each other. That's way to me. I didn't
need that. If the cones were a meter away from
(02:28):
each other, I wasn't going to walk into the road.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Was I. Yeah, I'd say that. And I don't know
the specifics. I haven't been our positive road today, but
I'd say that those kind of scenarios are where the
risk hasn't been necessarily identified correctly and the treatment mismatches
the risk. So really the system we should have is
where we can design for the risk of a motorway
is different to a Pontivy road, which is different to
(02:52):
a cul de sac in the back of Gisbon. That's
we should have a system that can incorporate a difference
in risk and therefore the treatment can be different and
at the moment that's not quite outworks, which is why
the whole rist base TTAM thing is is really a
good good thing to explore.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, yeah, Dave, how much does it cost to rent
one of those little cones every day?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I've seen that around the face. And in fact,
actually that's not how it's charged for. So there's no
one really charges per cone. It's it's always charging for
the for the plant, plant and and people and plant.
That's what's a plant, plants and trucks, right. It treates
trucks to put the put the equipment out, and of
course they sometimes use this protective trucks, you know, behind mode.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You don't have like a traffic you don't have a
road cone company. It is the if you're hiring the trucks,
they come with the cones.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's almost universally how it's done, correct.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And then how do you factor in the cost of
the cones, because I mean, obviously, if you're just gonna
geard me one cone, we're going to give me fifty
thousand cones is a massive difference.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, absolutely, But most traffic management companies themselves wouldn't charge
that way. But also a lot of traffic management is
done by the civil contractor themselves or by contract that's
doing it. So there's an amount of subcontract to TTM,
but there's also quite a lot done by you know,
the organic entity that's doing the activity.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Brilliant, Hey listen to Thank you very much, man, I
really appreciate having chat to you about that. That's Dave Tilton,
who's the chair of the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group.
But somebody's going to go down Ponsiby Road now and
measure how far are those COEs are proving completely wrong?
For more from hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
How about the war on cones? Man, I am here
for this A The Transport Minister, Simeon Brown has started
the war. He's planning, he says, to roll out a
risk based approach to temporary traffic management, and he wants
to get n ZTA to release a quarterly report on
how much money they're actually spending on traffic management. He
says there are too many cones and the current approach
is out of control. Dave Tilton is the chair of
the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group and he joins
(00:22):
us now, hey.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Dave, hi, how are you doing well?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Thank you? Do you agree with him that there are
too many cones?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'd say in some places? Yeah, I mean ultimately it's
probably not that simple. Though. Cones ultimately serve a purpose
they're at all, and we are trying to keep people
safe in the road environment. That's road users and workers.
So it's absolutely true that that balance doesn't work sometimes
and there's an overuse of them. And really it comes
(00:50):
down to whether the risk has been assessed and it's
not quite matching how it's been treated.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, what so is it a problem? That is what
explains me what's going on here? Is that ZI turns
up to a site, assesses the risk and they're incorrectly
assessing the risk and then dumping too many cones there.
Or are the rules just so prescriptive that it doesn't
really matter what the risk is, they just end up
with too many cones.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I'd say it's more of the latter, and it's
it probably comes down to the system that we have
and have had for the last twenty plus years. So
it's a very prescriptive system and for the most part
it served its purpose. But it's certainly been identified and
in fact predates the current government. Is that method, that
process isn't really quite getting the right amount of TTM,
(01:34):
and the purpose is to get just the right amount
of TTM, So just the right amount so it's safe
but not too much that there's excess and there's waste,
but also not too little because of course that would
create safe stage.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Mate, aren't we far away from having too little in
terms of cones?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's collectively if you looked at across the system, Yeah,
probably true. But also there's still there isn't There is
still a responsibility by everyone who undertakes activity in the
road to make sure that people are safe. You know,
there's plus nine hundred more than nine hundred people killed
in TTM environments.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So the last on Ponsivy Road, right, they're doing some
work on pons Andbi road at the moment kind of
there by the intersection with williamsonab and I walked past
it today and I reckon those cones. I mean like,
I didn't measure it with my eyes, but I reckon
that those cones on reflection would be like thirty centimeters
away from each other. That's way to me. I didn't
need that. If the cones were a meter away from
(02:28):
each other, I wasn't going to walk into the road.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Was I. Yeah, I'd say that. And I don't know
the specifics. I haven't been our positive road today, but
I'd say that those kind of scenarios are where the
risk hasn't been necessarily identified correctly and the treatment mismatches
the risk. So really the system we should have is
where we can design for the risk of a motorway
is different to a Pontivy road, which is different to
(02:52):
a cul de sac in the back of Gisbon. That's
we should have a system that can incorporate a difference
in risk and therefore the treatment can be different and
at the moment that's not quite outworks, which is why
the whole rist base TTAM thing is is really a
good good thing to explore.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, yeah, Dave, how much does it cost to rent
one of those little cones every day?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I've seen that around the face. And in fact,
actually that's not how it's charged for. So there's no
one really charges per cone. It's it's always charging for
the for the plant, plant and and people and plant.
That's what's a plant, plants and trucks, right. It treates
trucks to put the put the equipment out, and of
course they sometimes use this protective trucks, you know, behind mode.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You don't have like a traffic you don't have a
road cone company. It is the if you're hiring the trucks,
they come with the cones.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's almost universally how it's done, correct.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And then how do you factor in the cost of
the cones, because I mean, obviously, if you're just gonna
geard me one cone, we're going to give me fifty
thousand cones is a massive difference.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, absolutely, But most traffic management companies themselves wouldn't charge
that way. But also a lot of traffic management is
done by the civil contractor themselves or by contract that's
doing it. So there's an amount of subcontract to TTM,
but there's also quite a lot done by you know,
the organic entity that's doing the activity.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Brilliant, Hey listen to Thank you very much, man, I
really appreciate having chat to you about that. That's Dave Tilton,
who's the chair of the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group.
But somebody's going to go down Ponsiby Road now and
measure how far are those COEs are proving completely wrong?
For more from hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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