Is there a Code of Practice for warehouse traffic management?

Safe Work Australia publishes traffic management material as guidance rather than as an approved Code of Practice, including a warehousing-specific guide. Guidance carries less weight than an approved Code, so describing it as a Code overstates its status.

How wide does a pedestrian walkway need to be?

The guidance describes control categories rather than dimensions, so it does not answer that. Any specific width quoted in warehouse content is coming from another source, and it is worth establishing which one before treating it as a requirement.

Is line marking enough to separate people from forklifts?

Marked routes are one control among several, and they depend on people following them, which places them below physical separation in effectiveness. Whether the controls at a particular site are adequate is a question about that site, not one this page can answer.

Does a forklift licence cover site-specific traffic rules?

No. A high risk work licence relates to operating a class of equipment. The routes, exclusion zones and rules that apply in a particular building are site-specific, and providing them is on the business running the site.

Traffic management: people and powered mobile plant on one floor

Safe Work Australia publishes a suite of traffic management guidance that includes a warehousing-specific guide. It is guidance material rather than an approved Code, which changes its weight but not its usefulness — and it describes categories of control rather than numbers.

Last updated 2026-08-24

What Safe Work Australia actually publishes

The workplace traffic management material states that the guides "provide information on managing the traffic risks at the workplace, including powered mobile plant and vehicles". It is a suite rather than a single document: general workplace traffic management, elevating work platforms, ground conditions, shopping centres, construction, warehousing, events, and traffic control measures.

The warehousing guide is the directly relevant one, and its existence is worth knowing about because most operators reach for generic content instead. The same pages carry Safe Work Australia's standard note that it "is not a regulator and cannot advise you about WHS issues in the workplace", with a direction to your state or territory authority.

Guidance, not a Code — and why the distinction matters

This material is guidance, not an approved Code of Practice. That is a real difference in weight: an approved Code is used as evidence of what was reasonably practicable in a way guidance is not. Content that describes the traffic material as "the traffic management Code" is overstating it.

The distinction cuts both ways. Guidance is not binding, but it is the regulator's published view of how a known hazard is managed, and departing from it without a reason is not a strong position either. It sits below a Code and well above a supplier's brochure.

The control categories the guidance describes

The material describes categories rather than prescriptions: physical separation of people from vehicles, engineering controls such as reversing sensors and cameras, marked pedestrian walkways, exclusion zones, and traffic control measures with associated hazard checklists.

Notice what is not there. No exclusion-zone width, no signage dimension, no separation distance. That is not an omission — the guidance describes control types because the right dimension depends on the vehicle, the aisle and the operation. Any specific number you find quoted is coming from somewhere other than this guidance, and it is worth knowing where before you build to it.

How the controls are implemented on a floor is the practical end of this: keeping pedestrians and forklifts apart with barriers and routes, what the floor marking is actually doing, and the barriers and bollards that turn a marked line into a physical one. Signage designation sits with the safety signs standard rather than with the guidance.

Physical separation is the strongest control and the one designed in, not added later
Engineering controls on the vehicle sit below separation, not instead of it
Marked routes and exclusion zones depend on people following them, which makes them weaker

Where warehouse traffic actually goes wrong

The pinch points are predictable. Aisle mouths where a pedestrian route crosses a truck route. The dock, where trailers, pedestrians and forklifts converge in the one part of the building with the worst sightlines. Doorways between the warehouse and offices, where someone steps out at pedestrian speed into a vehicle path. Blind corners created by stacked stock rather than by the building.

Layout does more work here than any behavioural control. How wide the aisles are determines what a truck has to do to turn and whether there is room for a person to be in the aisle at all, and that is a design decision taken long before a safety programme is written.

Operator competence is the other half. The high risk work licence establishes a baseline for the machine, but a licence covers a class of equipment rather than a site, and the site-specific part — the routes, the rules, the pinch points — is on the business.

Where this sits in the frame

Powered mobile plant is unambiguously plant, so the plant duties apply on top of the traffic guidance, and the whole thing sits under the general duty structure like everything else.

One connection is worth flagging because it surprises people: work in an area with movement of powered mobile plant is one of the categories that can require the high risk construction work categories where the work is construction work. That does not apply to running a warehouse. It can apply to a project inside one, which is a different situation with a different document.

Common questions

Is there a Code of Practice for warehouse traffic management?: Safe Work Australia publishes traffic management material as guidance rather than as an approved Code of Practice, including a warehousing-specific guide. Guidance carries less weight than an approved Code, so describing it as a Code overstates its status.
How wide does a pedestrian walkway need to be?: The guidance describes control categories rather than dimensions, so it does not answer that. Any specific width quoted in warehouse content is coming from another source, and it is worth establishing which one before treating it as a requirement.
Is line marking enough to separate people from forklifts?: Marked routes are one control among several, and they depend on people following them, which places them below physical separation in effectiveness. Whether the controls at a particular site are adequate is a question about that site, not one this page can answer.
Does a forklift licence cover site-specific traffic rules?: No. A high risk work licence relates to operating a class of equipment. The routes, exclusion zones and rules that apply in a particular building are site-specific, and providing them is on the business running the site.

Sources

Safe Work Australia — Workplace traffic management guidance material — A suite of guidance documents, including a warehousing-specific guide. Guidance material, not an approved Code of Practice. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Managing risks of plant in the workplace — Defines plant and states who the Code is for. The retrieved content did not resolve whether static racking is treated as plant. Retrieved 2026-08-24.

Part of our guide to how WHS law is structured.