The road and traffic management code for WA mines is no longer a draft. On 4 August 2026 the Western Australian Government published the Code of practice: Road and traffic management at Western Australian mines, an approved code of practice under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA). It replaces more than a year of consultation and gives WA operators, for the first time, a single approved benchmark for haul roads, mobile plant, light vehicles and pedestrians on a mine site.
This article sets out what changed, what the code covers, and the practical work to do on site now.
What changed on 4 August 2026
The code went through public consultation via SafetyLine through 2025, with submissions closing in August 2025. It was then finalised, approved by the Minister and gazetted before publication. Industrial Relations Minister Simone McGurk described it as practical guidance to help mining operations better manage one of the industry’s most significant safety risks.
The legal weight of that shift matters. A draft is a signal. An approved code of practice is admissible in court as evidence of what is reasonably practicable to manage a risk. You can still comply by another method, but you must achieve a standard equivalent to or better than the code, and you will be asked to justify the difference. Until August 2026, WA operators had only Health and Safety Bulletin No. 9 and the audit guides. Now there is a code.
How the code fits the regulations
The code does not create new duties. It explains how to meet duties that already existed under the Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022.
Two of those duties do the heavy lifting. First, regulation 622 requires a mine safety management system. Second, regulations 627 to 629 require you to identify principal mining hazards and prepare a management plan for each. “Roads or other areas where mobile plant operate” is one of the listed principal mining hazards, which means most WA mines and quarries already had to hold a principal mining hazard management plan covering traffic. The new code is the yardstick that plan will be measured against.
If you are not sure whether that hazard applies to your site, work through identifying principal mining hazards first. If mobile plant moves on your site, it applies.
What the code covers
The published code brings together practical guidance across the whole traffic problem rather than treating haul roads in isolation. It addresses:
- Risk management for powered mobile plant, including selection, operation and maintenance.
- Developing a traffic management plan as the principal mining hazard management plan for roads and areas where mobile plant operate.
- Haul road design and maintenance standards, covering the road built for the vehicles that actually use it.
- Separating vehicles, mobile plant and pedestrians, including interactions between heavy and light vehicles, plant and infrastructure, and different equipment classes.
- Traffic control, signage and speed management.
- Parking and vehicle movement areas.
- Worker training and supervision.
- Emergency management, monitoring, auditing and review.
The structure is worth noting on its own. Signage, training and parking sit alongside road geometry, which reflects how these incidents actually happen. Very few vehicle interaction fatalities are caused by a road built to the wrong width. Most involve a light vehicle somewhere a haul truck driver did not expect it.
The traffic management plan is now the centrepiece
The clearest message in the code is that a traffic management plan is not a standalone document sitting beside your safety system. It is the principal mining hazard management plan for roads and areas where mobile plant operate, and it should read like one: hazards identified, risks assessed, controls specified with performance standards, and a review trigger.
A workable plan on a WA site covers a current map of the road network with haul routes, light vehicle routes, pedestrian areas, intersections and parking; interaction rules including right of way, positive communication and park-up procedures; speed limits with the reasoning behind them; roles and responsibilities including who authorises a road layout change; inspection and maintenance regimes for road condition, drainage, windrows and lighting; and a trigger to review when the pit, dump or road network changes.
The full walkthrough is in our guide to the quarry traffic management plan, which applies equally to a small mine.
Haul road design expectations
Haul road design is where traffic management becomes engineering. The expectation is that roads are designed for the largest vehicle that uses them, then built and maintained to that standard. That covers running width, gradient, sight distance, superelevation on curves, drainage and windrow height.
Intersections deserve particular attention, because that is where interaction risk concentrates. Sight lines, approach grades, priority control and stopping distance all need to suit the vehicles involved. The engineering principles do not change at the state border, so our guide to mine road intersection design and the detail on safety berm heights remain directly useful in WA, even though they were written against Queensland’s Recognised Standard 19.
Design is only half the job. A road built to standard and then left to degrade will not hold up as evidence of control, so condition monitoring and maintenance records matter as much as the original design. For a quarry-specific version, see quarry haul road and access road design.
What to do in the next 90 days
- Download the code and read it against your plan. Not a summary, the code itself. Mark every clause where your current practice differs.
- Check your traffic management plan is framed as a PMHMP. If it does not name the principal mining hazard, assess the risk and set performance standards, it will not read as compliant regardless of how good the content is.
- Walk the site against the map. Almost every site has at least one route, parking area or pedestrian crossing that exists in practice but not on the plan.
- Test segregation where it is weakest. Weighbridges, crib rooms, workshop aprons, fuel bays and contractor lay-down areas are the usual offenders. See segregating vehicles, plant and people.
- Fix the record-keeping. Road inspections, defect reports and layout changes need to be findable. If your evidence of maintenance is a supervisor’s memory, you do not have evidence.
- Brief the crews. An approved code changes what is expected of operators and supervisors, not just what sits in the safety office.
Keeping the road network visible
The hardest part of traffic management is not writing the plan. It is keeping the plan true as the pit advances, ramps move and dumps are rehandled. A traffic management plan with a six-month-old map is a document that describes a site that no longer exists.
Running the road network, exclusion zones and road hazards on a live shared map means the plan updates as the site does, and everyone from the SSE to a contractor truck driver sees the same picture. That is the argument behind visual hazard maps over text-based systems, and why critical controls fail without real-time visibility.
If you want to see what that looks like on a WA site, book a demo.
Related guides
- Quarry Safety in Western Australia: A Compliance Guide for Quarry Managers
- The Quarry Manager in WA: Duties, Appointment and When One Is Required
- How to Get a WA Quarry Manager’s Certificate of Competency
- Statutory Supervisors at a WA Quarry: Schedule 26 Explained
- All WA Quarries & Mines guides
Frequently asked questions
Is the WA road and traffic management code mandatory?
It is an approved code of practice, not a regulation, so it is not mandatory in the way a regulation is. You may comply by another method that achieves an equivalent or better standard. The code is admissible in proceedings as evidence of what is reasonably practicable, so departing from it needs to be a considered decision you can justify.
When was the code published?
4 August 2026. It followed public consultation on the draft that closed in August 2025, and was approved and gazetted before publication.
Does the code apply to quarries?
Yes. A quarry is a mine under the WHS (Mines) Regulations 2022, so the code applies to quarry operations in the same way it applies to a large open pit. What differs is scale, not obligation.
Do I still need Health and Safety Bulletin No. 9?
The bulletin remains useful background, and the WorkSafe traffic management audit guides are still a practical way to self-assess. The code now sets the benchmark, so read it first and use the audit guides to test yourself against it.
How does the code compare to Queensland’s RS19?
RS19 is a Queensland recognised standard focused on the design and construction of mine roads. The WA code is broader, covering mobile plant selection and operation, segregation, training, parking and emergency response as well as road design. The engineering fundamentals overlap heavily.