Make a TGS from a range

Start from a range

Open a saved range's card and tap Make TGS, or, while you're drawing a new range, tap Make TGS on this range. The builder opens with the road's speed limit and its traffic from the TMR count site (see Traffic volume and heavy vehicles).

The site

• Stopping traffic with: Portable traffic signals (to start with) or Traffic controllers.
• The range is: The work area (everything else is laid out around it) or Signal to signal / TC to TC (the range runs from one end to the other, and the work area is what's left in the middle).
• Traffic control: Shuttle flow closes one lane with a taper and lets each direction through in turn; Hold and release stops both directions, with no taper.
• Lane closed (shuttle flow): which direction's lane is closed. Its traffic meets the taper first.

Change the range

Type new chainages under The range from … to, or, while previewing, drag the round handles on the ends of the work area along the road. Everything else follows.

The layout

For shuttle flow, in the order the closed lane's traffic meets it:

1. The signal (or traffic controller), 30 m before the taper (at least 6 m).
2. A 30 m taper of cones from the edge of the lane, with three T5-7 hazard markers along it.
3. A 10 m additional warning area with a ute and its arrow board.
4. A 30 m safety buffer.
5. The work area.
6. Another 30 m safety buffer.
7. A 15 m termination taper back to the edge.
8. The other signal (or traffic controller), 30 m on (at least 6 m).

Every length can be changed. Safety buffers are at least 20 m; on roads of 50 km/h or less they can be left out. Untick Additional warning area to leave out the ute and its gap, so the safety buffer follows the taper; the hazard markers can be left out too.

Tick Plan to switch the taper to the other end when the closure will swap lanes during the job: the far end is laid out the same as the near end (safety buffer, a warning area, a full-length taper and the same distance out to the signal), so no signs need to move when the taper swaps over.

Set the Max stopping time (5 minutes to start with) and the speed at the signals (60 or 40 on roads over 60); the queue on each approach, and so where its signs go, follow.

The signs

Each approach gets, in the order drivers meet them:

• ROAD WORK AHEAD / 80 / REDUCE SPEED on roads over 80 km/h; up to 80 km/h, WORKER / ROAD WORK AHEAD (no sign carries two yellow blanks, and ROAD WORK AHEAD is on the road side).
• WORKER / 60 / REDUCE SPEED on roads over 60 km/h, with END ROAD WORK and the road's speed on its back for traffic leaving.
• The primary PREPARE TO STOP, Table 2.3 before the end of queue. Over 60 km/h the 60 km/h zone starts less than 200 m before it, so its distance goes by the speed before the zone (AGTTM Part 3 §2.2): 160 m at 80 km/h and over. On its own it's TRAFFIC SIGNALS (or TRAFFIC CONTROLLER) / PREPARE TO STOP. When it's more than 240 m from the signal, it becomes QUEUED TRAFFIC AHEAD / PREPARE TO STOP and an additional TRAFFIC SIGNALS / PREPARE TO STOP goes 120 m from the signal. Repeaters go evenly between the two, no more than Table 4.4(a) apart (QGTTM Part 3 §4.8).
• When it's 40 at the signals: blank / 40 / REDUCE SPEED one sign spacing before the stop line, with blank / 60 / ROAD WORK on its back.
• STOP HERE ON RED SIGNAL (or STOP HERE WHEN DIRECTED), then the signal or traffic controller.

On an undivided road the speed signs are back-to-back, so every one that lowers the speed brings it up again for traffic going the other way. Where there's no WORKER sign, END ROAD WORK goes on the back of ROAD WORK AHEAD. A back is for the traffic leaving the site, which has to see it on its left: when the sign is on both sides of the road, it's on the back of the right-hand copy; when the sign is only on the left, the back becomes a sign of its own across the road. On a divided road, END ROAD WORK stands on its own past the site. Near the start or end of a road section, the signs carry on onto the road beyond it. A road often changes section, name and chainage at a town or a junction while it carries straight on, such as the Captain Cook Highway becoming the Mossman - Daintree Road at Mossman. The builder tells you when some signs stand on the next road. Signs and pictures sit off the outside of the road so they don't cover it, and in 3D each grows away from the road. A copy on the right of the road is mirrored, so the speed is on the road side on both.

Signs on both sides

Each sign stands on the left of its traffic. A copy goes on the right:

• Speed signs: the ones lowering the speed, on roads with over 500 vehicles a day. Ticked from TMR's count, or when there's no count.
• All signs, on roads with 7,500 or more vehicles a day.
• Where two lanes go one way: any sign standing on an overtaking lane, or on a carriageway with two lanes. The lanes come from OpenStreetMap and are listed; add any it doesn't have under the list, by direction and chainages.

Side streets

Under Side streets the builder lists the roads OpenStreetMap shows meeting this one within the signs' reach (from Chainage's own copy of OpenStreetMap's Queensland roads, refreshed weekly, so they show straight away), with the side they're on and the chainage of the junction. They're all ticked to start with. Untick any you don't need. Each gets signs for where it meets the road (QGTTM Part 3 §4.8.1), set out along the side street from the junction and facing the traffic coming out of it. A long arrow on the bottom strip points the way to the works.

• Between ROAD WORK AHEAD and WORKER: ROAD WORK AHEAD / arrow.
• Between WORKER (or ROAD WORK AHEAD) and the primary PREPARE TO STOP: WORKER / ROAD WORK AHEAD / arrow.
• Between the primary PREPARE TO STOP and the end of queue: TRAFFIC SIGNALS (or TRAFFIC CONTROLLER) / PREPARE TO STOP / arrow one sign spacing in, and WORKER / ROAD WORK AHEAD / arrow a spacing beyond it.
• In the queue, between the end of queue and the signal: the same two signs, set back a further spacing, because the queue can reach the junction.
• Between the signal and the work area: a full approach of its own at its speed, with its own signal or traffic controller and its own end of queue. With no count for the side street its queue is taken as 50 m; type its queue beside it in the list if you know better.
• In the work area: on the open side, a full approach of its own. On the closed side there are no signs, and the cones open up 8 m either side of the junction so its traffic can come out. With a side street in the work area, the cones along it go 2 m apart so traffic doesn't cut into the closed lane.

Each side street's signs are spaced for its own speed limit (one sign spacing from QGTTM Table 2.2). The speed comes from TMR's speed sign survey, which covers local streets as well as state roads: the sign the side street's traffic last passed before the junction. Where the survey has nothing, it comes from OpenStreetMap's speed limit for the street, and failing that the default for that kind of street, marked to check. The list shows each speed and where it came from. If one is wrong, pick the right speed beside it.

With Distances between signs ticked, each side street gets its measurements too, like the road: from the junction to its first sign, then between each sign. Only real side streets are listed. The road you're on is never counted, even where OpenStreetMap maps it as many pieces, and a way only counts if it turns off the road.

Fit it to the road

The road line Chainage uses doesn't always sit exactly on the road in the map picture, and lanes can be wider than usual. Under Fit to the road:

• Shift each side of the road left or right until its signs and cones sit right.
• Set the Closure width: how far the taper comes in from the edge.
• Set how far apart the cones are in the tapers and along the closure. Along the closure they go every 12 m at 60 km/h past the site, and every 4 m when it's 40 at the signals.

Measurements along the site (each part of the closure) and Distances between signs (each approach, from the signal out to its first sign, beside that side's signs) are on to start with; untick either to leave it out.

Preview, then add it

Preview signs lays everything out on the map without saving it: tilt the map or open Street View to see it standing up. You don't need to sign in or open a project to preview. Change anything and the preview follows.

Tapping the map while the builder is open asks before it closes the builder (a tap looks that spot up). Add to project saves it all into the layer you're adding to, in one go. Everything is picked afterwards, so you can drag it all or move single items into place, and one Undo (Ctrl+Z) takes it all out again.