Workplace transport and vehicle safety, UK wide
Workplace Transport Safety
Vehicles and people share the same ground on almost every industrial site. The vehicle always wins. Sectors with the heaviest vehicle interface show it in the numbers. Waste and recycling recorded a fatal injury rate of 5.47 per 100,000 workers in 2025/26 against 0.37 across all industries. AL23 Safety reviews yards, traffic routes, vehicles and drivers for clients UK wide.
What is a workplace transport review?
Safe site, safe vehicle, safe driver, in that order
Workplace transport risk is organised around three questions. Is the site laid out so vehicles and people never need the same space? Are the vehicles suitable, maintained and fitted with the aids the layout demands? Are the drivers competent, authorised and supervised?
The order matters. Sites that skip straight to driver training are solving a layout problem with a person, which works until someone is distracted. We start with the site because the site is the control that keeps working when everything else fails.
Who needs one
Any site where a vehicle and a person can meet
- Warehouses, distribution centres and transport depots with continuous lift truck and heavy goods vehicle movement.
- Manufacturing sites with mixed internal traffic, shared doorways and deliveries into production areas.
- Waste transfer stations, materials recovery facilities and household waste recycling centres with public access.
- Construction sites with plant movement, delivery vehicles and pedestrian routes changing week to week.
- Ports, terminals and rail-served sites with straddle carriers, terminal tractors and reach stackers.
- Any operation where reversing is routine, where a banksman is the main control or where drivers leave the cab during loading.
The regulations that apply
Your legal framework, in plain terms
Workplace transport is governed by general duties rather than one dedicated set of regulations. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets the base duty to employees and to others affected, including visiting drivers, contractors and the public. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 govern the site itself. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 govern the vehicles as work equipment. The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 catch lift trucks and their attachments. HSE guidance HSG136 sets out what good looks like.
WHSWR 1992 regulation 17. Traffic routes
Every workplace must be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate in a safe manner. Traffic routes must be suitable, sufficient in number, of sufficient size and in suitable positions.
WHSWR 1992 regulations 12 and 13
Floors and traffic route surfaces must be suitable and free from obstruction. Measures are also required to prevent falls from loading bay edges and into pits.
PUWER 1998 regulations 25 to 30. Mobile work equipment
Rules on carrying people, rollover and falling object protection, restraining systems, control of speed and self-propelled equipment.
LOLER 1998 regulation 9. Thorough examination
Lift trucks used only to lift loads are examined every 12 months. Anything used to lift people is examined every 6 months, as is every lifting accessory.
HSWA 1974 sections 2 and 3
Covers agency drivers, hauliers, contractors and the public on your site, which is where most yard disputes about responsibility land.
What regulation 17 does not tell you
Regulation 17 requires traffic routes to be suitable, sufficient and well positioned. It gives you no width in metres, no crossing design and no minimum barrier height. The Approved Code of Practice L24 and HSG136 fill some of that gap with guidance rather than prescription. Your layout therefore has to be justified by risk assessment. An inspector will judge it on outcome rather than against a table. We write the justification alongside the layout.
What we assess
Site, vehicle and driver, checked on the ground
- Site layout and the routes people actually walk, established by observation rather than from the marked routes on a plan.
- Physical segregation, including barriers, kerbs, refuges, separate gates and pedestrian entrances to buildings.
- Crossing points, sight lines, mirror positions, corner blindness and lighting at the hours the site is worked.
- One way circulation and the design changes needed to eliminate reversing rather than manage it with a banksman.
- Reversing controls where elimination is not achievable, covering aids, alarms, cameras, marked areas and exclusion.
- Loading bay design, dock levellers, edge protection, trailer restraint and key control to prevent vehicle run-away during loading.
- Lift truck operations, pedestrian exclusion in racking aisles, speed control, attachment use and load stability.
- LOLER records for lift trucks and attachments, checked for interval, coverage and defect close-out alongside your wider PUWER and LOLER regime.
- Driver competence, authorisation, refresher intervals, agency driver induction and how a visiting driver is briefed on arrival.
- Visiting driver arrangements, including where they wait during loading and whether welfare facilities are provided.
- Vehicle maintenance, daily checks, defect reporting and whether a reported defect actually takes a vehicle out of service.
Our process
Watch a full shift, then map the interfaces
- 01
Observation visit
We watch the site work through a normal shift, including a delivery peak and a shift change. Traffic risk hides in the busy twenty minutes.
- 02
Route and interface mapping
We map every vehicle route and every pedestrian route, then mark where they cross, share or approach one another.
- 03
Three-part assessment
Findings are organised as safe site, safe vehicle and safe driver so it is clear whether the fix is engineering, equipment or management.
- 04
Traffic management plan
We produce or rewrite the plan, with a site drawing, rules for visiting drivers and the order in which changes should be made.
- 05
Implementation support and re-audit
We support the physical changes, brief supervisors and return to confirm the arrangement holds under pressure.
What you get
A marked-up drawing and a priority list
- A transport risk assessment covering internal traffic, yard operations, deliveries and pedestrian movement.
- A marked-up site traffic plan showing vehicle routes, pedestrian routes, crossings, exclusion zones and one way flow.
- A traffic management plan and site rules pack, written to issue to hauliers and agency drivers before arrival.
- A prioritised action list separating engineering changes with a cost against them from immediate management controls.
- A driver and operator competence matrix showing authorisation, category, refresher due dates and gaps.
What we need from you
Plans, vehicle lists and a normal working shift
- A site plan, ideally showing gates, buildings, doors, yards and racking.
- Vehicle and lift truck lists with attachments, plus current thorough examination reports.
- Delivery and collection volumes by time of day, including peaks and out of hours movements.
- Existing traffic management arrangements, site rules and driver induction material.
- Access during a normal working shift rather than a quiet period arranged for our benefit.
Why AL23 Safety
Real segregation named, painted lines called out
Accountable
If your segregation exists only as paint on a floor, we write that down. A painted walkway in a shared aisle is not segregation and we do not describe it as such.
Practical, not just compliant
We separate the barrier you can install next month from the gate relocation that belongs in next year's capital plan. We sequence the work so the biggest exposure closes first.
One team, three disciplines
Health and safety, fire safety and fire engineering in-house. Yard layout changes get checked against fire service access and escape routes before they are built.
UK wide
We review sites across the UK, from single depots to national networks. We bring sector context from warehouse operations and logistics to the assessment.
Look at the yard before the near miss becomes an incident
Most sites already know where the bad corner is
Tell us about the site and the traffic it handles. We will tell you what a review covers and whether the fix is likely to be engineering or management.
Common questions
Answers, up front
Cannot see your question? Get in touch and we will answer it directly.
Contact usRarely. A painted walkway relies on everyone looking and complying, which fails under time pressure. Physical separation using barriers, kerbs or separate routes is what regulation 17 is really asking for where the interface is frequent. Paint has a role in low traffic areas and as a supplement to physical measures.
The expectation is that you design reversing out where you reasonably can, usually through one way systems, drive-through bays and turning circles. Where reversing remains it needs controlled areas, pedestrian exclusion, reversing aids and a trained signaller where one is used. A banksman standing in the danger zone is a control that creates its own hazard.
Every 12 months where the truck lifts only loads. Every 6 months where it is used to lift people, for example with a working platform or a man-up cab. Every lifting accessory used with the truck sits at 6 months. Thorough examination under LOLER is separate from the daily pre-use check and from PUWER maintenance.
You are, alongside their employer. Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 covers people who are not your employees yet are affected by your undertaking. That means site rules, a briefing on arrival, a defined safe waiting area during loading and access to toilet and washing facilities. Shared responsibility does not reduce yours.
For a single site, expect a full day on site plus reporting, with the visit timed to catch a delivery peak. Multi-shift operations need more than one visit because night movements behave differently. Cost follows site size, the number of sites and shifts observed and whether a full traffic management plan and driver competence review are included. Tell us the sites and shift patterns and we will price it properly.
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