A traffic management plan can be one annotated drawing or a thick document. Either can be good. What matters is that it describes how vehicles and people actually share the site, and stays true as the site changes. This guide sets out what to put in one, based on HSE's A guide to workplace transport safety (HSG136) and the regulations behind it.
There is no statutory template. The duties are about outcomes.
Regulation 17(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 says: "Every workplace shall be organised in such a way that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate in a safe manner." Where vehicles and pedestrians share a route, there must be "sufficient separation between them."
Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a "suitable and sufficient" risk assessment, reviewed if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or there has been a significant change. Regulation 5 requires arrangements for "the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review" of the measures it identifies.
A traffic management plan is where those duties meet the ground: the risk assessment turned into routes, rules and responsibilities.
With the site as it is used, not as it was drawn. HSG136 (paragraph 15) asks employers to "monitor your workplace activities involving vehicles (including visiting vehicles) over a reasonable period to build up a clear picture of vehicle and pedestrian traffic movements."
HSE's traffic management page adds a question that shapes everything after it: "When will vehicles be on the route?" A yard at 10:00 on a Tuesday and the same yard at shift change, or after dark, can be different places.
Walk it at those times. Note where people actually cross (HSG136's "desire lines"), where drivers wait, and where reversing happens.
HSG136 is clear about priorities: "The main aim of any design should be the segregation of vehicles from pedestrians." A practical plan usually covers:
The last item is the one that turns a document into a system.
All fifteen sections are in our free traffic management plan template, as an editable Word file or a PDF to print.
A plan is a design. Whether it is what actually happens, on every shift, is a separate question.
Everyone who drives or walks on the site, including people who are only there today. HSG136 is specific: agency workers and contractors are held to "the same health and safety standards" as permanent staff, and are "likely to need specific job and familiarisation training, and some supervision and monitoring." Visiting drivers "may not have visited the site before and may not be fluent in English." Drivers, including agency staff, should know they are authorised to refuse or stop loading for safety reasons. For forklift operators, HSE's code L117 sets out training, authorisation and supervision.
They are the people who meet the plan for the first time, sometimes on a dark morning. It is worth writing the induction with them in mind.
HSG136 calls supervision "an essential part of monitoring safe working", adding that "even where risks are low there will still need to be some supervision to make sure safety standards are being maintained." A clear incident-reporting procedure, it says, can "show how effective your control measures are." HSG65 frames the two as active and reactive monitoring.
Practical checks that keep a plan honest:
If something has already gone wrong, Proving Your Traffic Management Controls Work covers what evidence carries weight afterwards.
The best traffic management plans are the ones that get rewritten, because someone kept looking.
Not as a named document. The law requires that every workplace is organised so pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely (Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, regulation 17), that risks are assessed (Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3), and that controls are monitored and reviewed (regulation 5). Employers with five or more employees must record the significant findings of the risk assessment. A written traffic management plan is the most practical way of meeting and evidencing those duties.
HSG136 is HSE's A guide to workplace transport safety, third edition, published in 2014. It gives employers advice on their legal duties and on controlling workplace transport risk, grouped into safe site (design and activity), safe vehicle and safe driver. It covers traffic routes, segregation, crossings, speed, reversing, parking, loading and unloading, and driver training.
HSG136 says segregating pedestrians from vehicles, "preferably by making routes entirely separate, is the most effective way of protecting them." Footbridges and subways are its examples of complete segregation. Where routes must cross, it asks for marked and signed crossing points with clear visibility in all directions.
Only when other ways of controlling reversing risk have been ruled out. HSG136 says to use a trained banksman (signaller) "only when all other options have been exhausted," after one-way systems, drive-through layouts, turning areas, marked reversing areas and visibility aids. Banksmen must be trained, visible to the driver at all times, and use signals agreed with the driver beforehand.
HSE sets no fixed interval. Under regulation 3(3) of the Management Regulations, the risk assessment behind it must be reviewed if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or there has been a significant change, such as new vehicles, routes, layouts or shift patterns. Checks that the plan is being followed should cover nights, shift changes and peak periods, not only the day shift.
A plan describes the site as drawn. Which part of yours would you most like to see on the night shift? Safety Mapping: a free two-week trial on one camera.
By Hao Zheng, CEO at RoboK · Published 28 October 2026 · Last updated 28 October 2026