If you prepare traffic management plans in New Zealand, the question that trips people up first is the simplest one: what actually has to be in the plan for it to be accepted?
A TMP isn’t a single form. It’s a set of documents built on a site-specific risk assessment. Get the set complete and you close off most of the reasons plans get sent back. Here’s what belongs in each part, written for planners and the people who check their work.
A compliant TMP is four documents
Under NZGTTM, a full traffic management plan for a job is made up of:
- The planning form — confirms the plan is authorised, the risk assessment is attached, and the right approvals are in place.
- The general form — the who, where, when and what of the job, plus the controls you’re using.
- One or more traffic management diagrams (TMDs) and their form — how each layout gets installed, run and taken down.
- A site-specific risk assessment — the hazard analysis every control in the plan traces back to.
Miss one of these, or leave the risk assessment thin, and the plan is incomplete no matter how tidy the diagrams look. The risk assessment is the part reviewers dig into hardest, and it’s the part most often found light.
The planning form: is this plan authorised and complete?
The planning form is the cover sheet for compliance. Its job is to show at a glance that the plan is legitimate and complete. Reading it, a reviewer should be able to confirm:
- The plan has a reference and is tied to the right corridor access request or permit.
- A site-specific risk assessment is attached, not just mentioned.
- The main risks and their controls are summarised.
- The required authorisations are recorded, including who designed the plan and who’s accountable for it.
- The associated forms (the general form, each TMD) are listed and present.
It’s the first thing a reviewer picks up. If it says the risk assessment is attached and it isn’t, that’s an instant decline.
The general form: the full picture of the job
This is the biggest part of the plan, and it carries the detail. A complete general form covers:
- The organisations involved: the contractor, the client, the road controlling authority.
- The location: the road, the extent of the works, and the road data that shapes the controls you chose.
- The programme and staging: dates, working hours, and how the job moves through its stages.
- What the work actually is, in plain terms.
- The risks, both the activity risks and the environmental ones, carried through from the risk assessment.
- The parts of the road affected: lanes, footpaths, cycleways, accesses, anything the public relies on.
- Temporary speed limits: each speed change, where it applies, and why.
- The hardware and controls the plan depends on.
- Contingency: what happens when conditions change on site.
- The diagram set: the TMDs and any urgent TMDs (UTMDs) that apply.
- Contacts: who’s reachable while the work is on.
- Preparation and approval: who prepared the plan, and the space for the road controlling authority to record their decision.
The usual problem here isn’t a missing section. It’s a section filled in generically. A location or speed-limit entry that could belong to any job tells a reviewer the plan wasn’t built for this site.
The TMD form: how each layout actually works
A diagram on its own isn’t a plan. Each traffic management diagram needs the detail around it so the crew knows how to set it up and take it down safely. For every TMD, record:
- What the layout is and where it applies.
- When it can and can’t be used.
- The risks specific to that layout, and any delay road users can expect.
- How it’s installed: the sequence, the controls, the method.
- How it’s run: the controls that hold while the work is on, and how the site is monitored.
- How it’s removed: the sequence and method for taking it down.
Install, run, remove is the pattern reviewers look for. A layout that shows the running state but not how it’s safely set up or removed is only part of a plan.
The risk assessment: the spine, not an attachment
This is the part that separates a compliant plan from a compliant-looking one. NZGTTM is risk-based, which means every control in your plan has to trace back to a hazard you identified and assessed. A site-specific risk assessment should:
- Identify the hazards for this activity at this location, not a generic list.
- Assess the risk before controls.
- Set out the controls you’re applying.
- Show the net risk once those controls are in place.
That last point is where plans most often fall down. Auckland Transport has said so directly in its own guidance: “Assessments are often missing, incomplete, or do not clearly define net risk after controls.” If a reviewer can’t see that the leftover risk has been brought down to a reasonable level, the risk assessment hasn’t done its job, and nothing built on top of it can be trusted.
Treat the risk assessment as the source the rest of the plan flows from, because under NZGTTM that’s exactly what it is.
Generic or site-specific: which do you need?
A generic TMP built from a library layout can be a fast, valid start for routine, low-risk work on a familiar corridor. But the moment the site has something the library didn’t plan for — a pedestrian route to protect, an access to keep open, an odd bit of road geometry — the plan needs to go site-specific. When you’re unsure, site-specific is the safer answer, because a generic plan that doesn’t match the ground is one of the clearest reasons a plan gets declined.
Why plans get judged incomplete
Most declines aren’t exotic. They cluster around a few gaps:
- The risk assessment is missing, generic, or doesn’t show net risk after controls.
- The diagrams don’t match the site conditions described.
- Speed limits, tapers or buffer spaces aren’t backed up by the layout.
- A route for pedestrians or cyclists through or around the works isn’t dealt with.
- The document set is incomplete, so a reviewer can’t check one part against another.
Work through the checklist above and you close off most of these before a plan is ever submitted.
Common questions
What documents make up a TMP under NZGTTM? A planning form, a general form, one or more traffic management diagrams with their form, and a site-specific risk assessment. Together they’re the plan.
Is a risk assessment mandatory? Yes. NZGTTM is risk-based, so the risk assessment is the foundation, not an optional extra. Every control should trace back to it.
What’s the difference between a TMP and a TMD? The TMP is the whole plan. A TMD, a traffic management diagram, is one layout inside it, showing how the controls are arranged for a stage of the work. A plan usually has several.
Do I use NZGTTM or CoPTTM now? NZGTTM is the current framework. CoPTTM is the older code and is being phased out. New plans should be built to NZGTTM and its risk-based approach.
Where TrafficSense fits
TrafficSense drafts the full NZGTTM document set from your job data, carries the risk assessment through into every field that depends on it, keeps a person in charge of the final approval, and records where every value came from. It sits alongside your diagram tools rather than replacing them.