According to the National Road Safety Partnership Program, each year one traffic controller is killed on our roads and 100 more are injured.
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Tragedies like these are preventable. Cue the world’s first Australian-built Automated Cone Truck (ACT), developed by Brisbane’s Arrowes Roading Safety.
Arrowes’ executive director Lea Ea initiated the development of the ACT to find a solution to the alarming number of fatalities and serious injuries among traffic controllers, while also reducing manual handling and traffic set-up times.
Lea says these numbers must go down, as each life lost is one too many.
“Research by Safe Work Australia found 63 per cent of fatalities on worksites were caused by being hit by moving vehicles,” she says.
The seed for the cone truck was planted in 2014 with the development of the eSTOP, a portable traffic signal system designed to replace traditional traffic controllers who often worked in risky conditions.
This innovative vision was born from tragedy, ignited by an accident in which a former member of parliament lost his wife while she was working as a traffic controller.
Lea says the eSTOP was a game changer, allowing traffic workers to do their job remotely, away from the road.
“We transformed the traffic lantern into a portable item that could be remotely controlled by a traffic controller, instead of someone standing in the middle of road with a stop sign,” she says.
“The worker is able to control the traffic from a distance, which led to saving lives.”
In 2018, a phone call highlighted the impact of the eSTOP – the equipment had done its job and saved someone’s life, which sparked another journey of innovation.
The Automated Cone Truck is an Isuzu 140/120-260 Auto LWB and was built to be used easily by truck drivers, who only have to program the spacing between each cone.
A cone can be deployed every seven seconds, placed at intervals of three to 24 metres while travelling at speeds of up to 16 kilometres an hour.
“In terms of the mechanics behind it, the user has nothing to do with it, but from a development point of view we have made it so simple,” Lea says.
“We want it to eliminate the number of moving components. This is important because we want longevity of use and not constant mechanical issues that would result in us having to maintain it all the time.”
Mechanically, this is how the system works: the gantry system picks up three cones at a time, placing them on the conveyor which will move left or right, depending on whether the operator wants to drop the cones on the left or right side of the truck.
There are two grippers on either side and depending on which one you’re deploying, it will grip the cone from the conveyor and place it on the road. With the development of the truck taking place in Arrowes Roading Safety’s workshop, everything worked perfectly – until the trial in 2020 when the grippers slipped.
“The environment was very different compared to a workshop environment, as we now had the debris, dust, oil, wet weather and all the greases, so it slipped through,” she says.
“We watered down the grippers with a hose, and nothing happened, but in the trial, it slipped, so we improved on that.
“We also spent quite a lot of time refining the gripper, so now it’s 100 per cent.
“It’s got two gripping systems at the top and middle now, therefore there’s no slippage anymore.”
The team sought feedback from users on how they implemented the trucking system, as well as the Human Machine Interface (HMI) which also had to be modified.
“We learnt a lot about what it’s like to sit in the truck, thinking about how truckies actually use the system in a real-life environment which gave us a lot of insight.
“We spent two years after that refining and developing, trialling and testing it before we could commercially sell it.”
When Deals on Wheels asked about the impact the ACT will have on the community, Lea listed reason upon reason.
“Thanks to this project, we’ve learnt that they’ve eliminated 1,200 tonnes of manual handling from just one project.
“You can imagine what that means from a manual handling in long-term injury point of view, like arthritis or back strains.”
The project has not only improved safety but also demonstrates Australia’s potential when it comes to innovation and manufacturing.
As a small business, Lea says she and the team took on the project to showcase Australia’s capabilities.
“We don’t want to be like every other company that says, ‘I’ve got a problem, let’s look overseas and find a solution.’
“We realised, there’s a problem and we want to solve it, so why don’t we develop it, show our capability and then export it?”
Before her job at Arrowes, Lea worked in Singapore for 16 years, supplying hearing aids to 24 countries around the world.
“When I came back to Australia and started working, I realised that we don’t have any manufacturing here and I was quite disappointed.
“We don’t do value creation, so for me to be able to showcase our capability and our relevance, and to be able to innovate, produce, create this kind of value, was amazing for me.
“I had guys coming up to me saying they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get this amount of hands-on development experience and to explore, research and develop a product like this in Australia, the way it has been previously.
“We lose a lot of talent and capabilities because we don’t offer this kind of opportunity locally – everyone sources it overseas.”
According to the Australian National University, road fatalities cost the Australian economy $33 billion in 2017 alone.
The ACT hasn’t gone without recognition, however, winning the Victorian Major Transport Infrastructure Authority’s award for innovation and the Director General Award for Safety innovations in 2022, as well as the National Safety Award (NSCA) in 2023.
The ACT is also a finalist in Moreton Bay City Council Business & Innovations Awards for 2024.
“It’s important for us to have that recognition, it’s affirming, and we all need that confirmation,” Lea says.
“We believe in what we do, but to be recognised by the community is another level. It’s the satisfaction, the reward you feel because of your hard work.
“We knew we had a purpose. We knew we would be making a difference but doing so and then getting recognition for it that is very satisfying and encourages us to continue to develop.”
Lea says the ACT won’t stop revolutionising and work will continuously be made to improve it.
“The iPhone was big and heavy in the 90s. Thirty years on, it’s smaller and more intelligent. We envision the automated cone truck will also develop this way.”
Looking ahead, Arrowes is not resting on its laurels. The next project, named ASSIST (Arrowes Smart Interactive Safety Technology), promises to further revolutionise safety with advanced features like speed alerts for road workers and hazard detection in blind spots.
This new initiative aims to build on the lessons learned from the ACT, pushing the boundaries of road safety technology.
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