When developments of any scale are planned, deciphering statutory car parking requirements, minimum car parking requirements and generally how many parking spots are needed can be a major headache.
That's where a traffic consultant comes in. The role of a traffic consultant (or traffic engineer) is to determine precisely how many parking spaces and their layout/design needs to ensure the building's likelihood of being approved and overall functionality.
Traffic consultants also assist in any matters related to traffic analysis, bicycles/End of Trip Facilities, pedestrian connectivity and other transport-related strategies that may aid you in any facet of negotiating the Planning System.
The role of the traffic consultant will depend on the stage of the project. Still, the overall goal of a traffic consultant is to ensure a development's compliance with local guiedlines, standards and current practice required for council approval.
A traffic consultant will work with project architects/managers/planners/developers to help secure planning permits for developments in a cost effective and timely manner, allowing for car park reductions, through a thorough traffic engineering assessment.
Why are traffic consultants valuable to a project?
They have the potential to save your project a lot of money.
For developments where the provision of extra car spaces involves costly digging further underground or mechanical car parking installations, traffic consultants will help justify a sensible reduction in parking that won't financially impact the development. This can include reducing the need for visitor or customer spaces, which do not necessarily represent a good Return On Investment (ROI).
At the heart of what a traffic consultant does is to ensure the traffic generated by developments into the local areas is at an acceptable level and as efficient as possible.
This can also include Local Area Traffic Management Studies (LATMS) both on behalf of Council’s and developers, particularly where there is a cumulative impact of new development (think Cremorne, Box Hill, Cheltenham etc.).
This includes an assessment of parking or traffic within a defined area to see if any potential changes would be beneficial to the area, such as:
• Introduction or changes to parking restrictions
• Additional parking provided fore defined user groups
• traffic calming devices such as road humps or slow points
• turn restrictions, intersection upgrades, signalised intersection changes (phasing, priority etc).