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TransportTraffic EngineeringSouth Australia
Tonkin's People Spotlight gives you behind the scenes insights about the technical specialists in our business.
Eli Alabaster is a Traffic Engineer in Tonkin's Local Government Team. While he is still relatively early in his career, Eli's passion and aptitude quickly propelled him into project leadership across civil and traffic projects.
Gaining experience across a broad range of Tonkin's traffic engineering services, from traffic assessments to community engagement workshops, Eli has had the opportunity to fast-track his career experience, while also providing valuable services to our clients and the South Australian community.
Eli Alabaster is a Traffic Engineer in Tonkin's Local Government Team. While he is still relatively early in his career, Eli's passion and aptitude quickly propelled him into project leadership across civil and traffic projects.
Gaining experience across a broad range of Tonkin's traffic engineering services, from traffic assessments to community engagement workshops, Eli has had the opportunity to fast-track his career experience, while also providing valuable services to our clients and the South Australian community.
How did you get your start in traffic engineering?
I found a passion for traffic engineering while on university placement at a rural council near Mildura (where I grew up). As a third-year civil engineering student, I was quickly involved in designing roads for the council's yearly upgrades program. I was also provided the opportunity to respond to community requests regarding local traffic issues. This early exposure to traffic and transport led me to investigating rural and urban crash data for my Honours thesis. I was then offered the opportunity to interview with Tonkin at the end of my degree for a role as a Traffic Engineer in the Local Government Team. I was keen to remain in Adelaide and thrilled to join Tonkin's traffic engineering team, working with James Arnold. Over the past three years, our team has grown and I have taken on a project leadership role across a range of civil and traffic projects.
What are your specialties and areas of interest?
I am very interested in road safety and local government traffic and transport. Over the past three years, I have enjoyed working on local area traffic management projects for a series of councils in South Australia. These projects combine traffic safety issues, community engagement, and the possibility of implementing change. I have recently completed training as a road safety auditor, which involves unique challenges in providing independent safety reviews of roads, footpaths, and cycleways. I have always enjoyed solving problems and projects in local government sometimes require thinking outside of the box to find affordable and practical solutions. During my time studying and working, I have also enjoyed working on asset management and using geospatial tools to map data. This is particularly important when comparing crash and fatality data to road features such as traffic volumes.
What is something that Traffic Engineers do that people may not realise?
As a traffic engineer, my field of work can be very broad. When I first started at Tonkin, I worked primarily on completing traffic assessments for new housing or business developments. However, across the past three years, I have been involved in road upgrades, auditing, school safety reviews, shared path design, traffic modelling, pavement investigations, parking reviews, corridor management plans, main street upgrades, assisting our clients with funding applications for road upgrades, and community engagement / workshops (just to name a few).
As part of my job (and as a qualified civil engineer), it is my responsibility to ensure that the solutions I design will be appropriate now and for many years in the future. It is also my responsibility to provide clear explanations to the community about why changes to our road network — whether that’s posted speed reductions or new parking restrictions — are needed to ensure public safety.
What challenges are your clients facing now and into the future?
Population growth and housing density changes are presenting significant issues for councils and developers in 2025. More vehicles are continuously using our local road networks with the need for parking and increased space for vehicles is an ever-growing demand.
As traffic engineers part of our role is to promote and plan for active and public transport to help ease traffic congestion. A balance is needed to ensure our transport networks are not reliant on private vehicles and that public spaces are still available for walking and cycling. This can be hard to achieve for our clients with pressure from the local community and the rising cost of infrastructure projects constraining the scope of works that can be completed. In our traffic team, we aim to provide multiple solutions on our projects that are flexible and keep our transport network safe for everyone.
As traffic engineers part of our role is to promote and plan for active and public transport to help ease traffic congestion. A balance is needed to ensure our transport networks are not reliant on private vehicles and that public spaces are still available for walking and cycling. This can be hard to achieve for our clients with pressure from the local community and the rising cost of infrastructure projects constraining the scope of works that can be completed. In our traffic team, we aim to provide multiple solutions on our projects that are flexible and keep our transport network safe for everyone.