Suppose you want to become a traffic controller in a city, metropolis, or urban locality where hundreds of vehicles pass through the roads. In that case, you must learn government-prescribed methods to manage the movement of vehicles and mankind on the roads.

You should pursue a relevant course and obtain a certification in it. It will help you understand necessary traffic rules and methods to ensure road safety and manage vehicular and pedestrian movement on streets or any other construction site.

According to Statista, annual road accident deaths are rising in Australia. The report says the total number of road deaths across Australia for the year ending July 2023 was approximately 1.2 thousand, a slight increase from the previous year.

Why Do You Need to Complete the Traffic Controller Course?

Traffic management in a densely populated urban area with hundreds of vehicles on its roads is a very complex job.

This is where you should learn important points about a traffic controller’s duty and what jobs the person has to execute daily to ensure road safety.

Here are some of the most important functional aspects of the job of a traffic controller:

• Implement Traffic Management Rules: An on-duty traffic controller has to set up different mandatory road signs and signals, create barriers, and use cones to direct vehicles plying through roads, facilitating people to move safely.
• Guiding Traffic Movement: A traffic controller’s primary job is to direct vehicles. To do this, you have to stop vehicles and signal them to start again when there is congestion on the road.
• Ensure pedestrian safety: This is a crucial role that you have to play as a traffic controller. Pedestrians must be facilitated in crossing the roads, moving along the pavements, and acting according to automated road signals.
• Construction Site Traffic Management: You cannot shoulder this responsibility unless you have taken a course in traffic management. On a construction site, you must install signboards and ask pedestrians to keep their distance from the working places. All construction sites near the road or road junctions are prone to multiple risks.
• Easing Traffic Congestions: Traffic congestion is a very common problem during busy office hours. The city roads often get jammed. If you have completed a traffic management course and obtained certification, you know how to manage time and direct vehicles in different directions to avoid congestion.

These factors highlight the importance of a traffic control course inefficiently functioning as a traffic controller.

Steps You Should Take to Become a Traffic Controller

You should take certain steps to become a trained road traffic controller. We are listing below five such essential steps:

• Step 1: Complete the Traffic Controller Course and Obtain Certification: This is your first step. You can get traffic management training in different private and government-run institutes. Upon completing the course, you can get certification. This course teaches you all about traffic management rules, regulations, processes, and operational procedures. You will also understand the meaning and significance of all traffic signs, signals, and various equipment used for road safety.
• Step 2: Get a Traffic Controller License: After completing the course, you should get a license. This license will specify the city and state where you want to work as a traffic controller. Since the government issued this license, it is valid throughout the country (and has international validation).
• Step 3: Get Other Mandatory Certifications: Besides the license, you should also get other certifications, like:

1. White Card: Mandatory for operating traffic on a construction site
2. First Aid Certification: The movement of vehicles and pedestrians on the road may result in an accident. As a traffic controller, you must provide first aid to someone injured following an accident.

Step 4: Get Additional Certifications: The road traffic departments of some cities and states demand additional licenses and certifications to consider a job as a traffic controller. Sometimes, a traffic controller is also assigned certain specialized jobs, such as emergency cases and security-related cases.

Step 5: Upgrade Your Certifications: Some special courses teach about new technological and digital developments in urban road traffic control. Similarly, you must also take courses on traffic acts.

Conclusion

To become a traffic controller, you may have to control hundreds of vehicles passing through the roads in an urban locality, city, or metropolis. This mandates that you take proper training modulated by the government.

During your certification course in urban traffic management, you learn all that is required to efficiently manage the traffic system to forestall accidents leading to death or serious injury.