Back to People Spotlight: Meet Our Team
TransportTraffic EngineeringSouth Australia
Tonkin's People Spotlight gives you behind the scenes insights about the technical specialists in our business.
What made you choose traffic engineering over other engineering disciplines?
Traffic engineering has a unique ability to impact people’s daily lives on a deeply personal level. In my view, it’s the most "humane" discipline within civil engineering, as it is often shaped by human behaviour and preferences, rather than just cold math and logic. This human-centered approach makes it especially rewarding, as the solutions we create are directly influenced by how people interact with their environment.
What are your areas of interest in the traffic space?
Conducting traffic impact studies, traffic management planning, detour analysis, intersection modelling, and road design. This may involve close collaboration with designers and architects, utilising computer modelling tools, performing traffic surveys, and engaging with various stakeholders to optimize traffic flow and ensure safety.
I am also a road safety auditor and lots of my work focus on road safety, such as conducting safety review on projects at different stages, or providing safety advise where needed.
What is something that traffic engineers do or help with that the community may not realise?
A common misconception is that traffic engineers are the ones directly controlling traffic signals! In reality, traffic signals are typically managed by road authorities from centralized control centres. What many people may not realise is that how much traffic engineers contribute to safety beyond road design stage. We often examine crash data and pattern, and work closely with road authorities and stakeholders to improve road and intersection safety.
Can you tell us about a project where data surprised you or changed your original assumptions?
This is a common occurrence during road safety audits, where the initial response is often to 'blame the driver' when a serious or fatal crash occurs. However, through careful site inspections and further investigation, we frequently find that a key part of the road system may have either failed or lacked the necessary forgiveness to prevent a fatal outcome when a driver makes a simple mistake.