Health and Safety Forum is an open forum for members of the Electricity Supply Industry to discuss... View more
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Health and Safety Forum is an open forum for members of the Electricity Supply Industry to discuss health and safety matters and learn from each other.
The Electricity Distribution Sector has a Health and Safety meeting every three months, to find out more contact Maarten Tinsel – maarten.tinsel@omexon.co.nz.
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Reply To: Waka Kotahi is consulting on the draft guide to temporary traffic management
The draft Waka Kotahi documents include information around Non-road construction activities including activities for Utilities and services – telecommunications, power, gas, breakdown, waste collection etc. Orion and the industry need to consider if ‘Network Operating’ falls into this category and if it does, how can we ensure the ‘operator vehicle’ may be acknowledged – throughout the country.
Orion have piloted a twenty year programme that has utilised reflective chevrons around our operator fleet to provide other road users visible identification of network operating activities shown no significant impacts or risks to traffic flow or our workers. That process has been accepted and approved by our local authorities as a safe work method to control the known risks. Our community is very familiar with our chevron marked up vehicles which demonstrates we have influenced a change in their behaviour especially when we are patrolling an area or crossing their land.
The draft Waka Kotahi NZ guide to temporary traffic management – Supporting material section 1.6 indicates that a ‘Practice note’ may be prepared for a specific activity that is to be repeated regularly.
The description for a Practice note includes
Waka Kotahi recommend (1.6.4) where possible, practice notes should be prepared by national bodies to maximise consistency.
My question for the EEA is, have Waka Kotahi and/or the EEA considered the option for distribution networks to be able to operate their equipment situated at the side of or in proximity to the road?
As a Utility Operator functioning under the Utilities Act our front line operators may be recognised as essential workers so that they may operate in all circumstances. While they are not an emergency service they often work with emergency services attending incidents on our roads. Having that status supports our position to move towards being seen as an essential service with appropriately marked vehicles.