Physical and Digital Protection, Presented Together at the VIDA Roads Contractor Safety Forum
Altus Traffic presented two work zone protection technologies to the safety leaders of Victoria’s Big Build contractors at the VIDA Roads Contractor Safety Forum on 31 July 2026. The MBT-1 mobile barrier truck and Workzone Digitisation. One puts steel between a crew and live traffic. The other puts data around them. Both exist for the same reason: no one working on a live road should have to depend on a passing driver paying attention.
What is the VIDA Roads Contractor Safety Forum?
The VIDA Roads Contractor Safety Forum is a periodic session run by the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority (VIDA) that brings the contractors delivering Victoria’s Big Build road projects together with the authority’s health and safety leadership. It sits alongside VIDA’s industry and environmental management forums and connects to safety initiatives coordinated through the Major Infrastructure Safety hub (MISH).
The room is senior: safety directors and safety managers from the Tier 1 contractors delivering the state’s road program. The purpose is not compliance reporting. It is sharing what is actually working on site, reviewing how projects are being executed, and moving the portfolio from meeting the standard to setting it.
Altus Traffic was invited to present its technology and innovation to that group, with encouragement from VIDA to see this equipment used on Big Build projects.
Why VIDA Roads matters to Victorian road safety
VIDA Roads delivers the road infrastructure portfolio of Victoria’s Big Build, including North East Link, the newly completed West Gate Tunnel, and the dozens of freeway and road upgrades grouped under Big Build Roads.
That is one of the largest concentrations ofroad construction activity in the country, and almost all of it happens next to traffic that has not stopped. Every one of those sites has our people, and our clients’ people, working metres from moving vehicles. Every one of them has someone waiting for them at the end of the shift.
The MBT-1 mobile barrier truck
Mobile work zones present a set of challenges that static sites do not, particularly when the work is happening in live traffic. The MBT-1 delivers positive protection, shielding the crew from both rear and side traffic impacts.
The operational case Amel Mrkanovic, Operations Manager with Altus Group, put to the forum:
Safety is the reason for the MBT-1, but efficiency is what makes it viable across a program of works. Closures disrupt traffic flow and drive project costs, so the number of nights a job occupies the road matters to everyone involved. Crews using the MBT-1 have reported completing work in a single night that previously took up to five.
The gains come from:
Streamlined set up and pack down processes
Reduced need for support vehicles and crews
Improved staff confidence and workflow continuity
Better traffic outcomes for the public
Workzone Digitisation
Workzone Digitisation (WZD) is Altus’s technology platform for monitoring and recording what actually happens inside a work zone. Rather than relying on a controller’s recollection at the end of a shift, WZD instruments the site.
The components Beth Lilford, Head of Digital with the Altus Group, walked the forum through:
Intellitop Cone Sensors detect when a cone or delineation device is struck or displaced.
Sentry Lasers detect vehicles & people breaching the exclusion zone.
Portable Site Alarm gives the crew an audible warning in the seconds that matter, so people can move rather than react to a noise they hear too late.
Intellitag – creates a digital twin of all assets in a worksite, monitoring their position, function & orientation.
Speed and compliance data captured across the deployment: (Speed, volume of vehicle, queue lengths, down stream delays, hard braking, hard swerving events), and non-conformance counts and incursion records for the site rather than estimates.
What that data enables is the pattern Altus calls the data to action loop: the monitoring surfaces a problem, a specific change is made to the traffic guidance scheme or the shift plan in response, and the subsequent record confirms whether it worked.
What this means for contractors on the Big Build
For safety directors on Big Build projects, three practical points came out of the session:
Hard protection is now viable for shorter duration works. The traditional trade off, that temporary concrete barrier is only worth installing for long duration works, is no longer the only option available.
Work zone performance can be evidenced. Speed compliance, incursions and exclusion zone breaches can be reported as data on a project, which changes what is provable in an investigation and what can be demonstrated to a principal.
The technology is available now, on existing Victorian contracts.
Thank you
Our thanks to Marko Nikolic, Jamie Dinneen and David Hardy from the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority (VIDA), for the invitation and for arranging the session.
Thank you also to Beth and Amel for representing Altus, and to the safety leaders who stayed back afterwards with questions.
To learn more or book the MBT-1® for your next road project, please contact Altus Traffic VIC.
You can also read more about the MBT-1® here.
To discuss Workzone Digitisation on your project, please contact:
Beth Lilford, Head of Digital, Altus Group: beth.lilford@altusgroup.com.au
Find out more about the Workzone Digitisation system here.