Drawing an RSA 21 traffic sign plan: standard plans, lead times, practice

What is RSA 21 and who does it affect?

The RSA – guidelines for safeguarding work sites on roads – governs how construction sites in traffic space are to be safeguarded and signed. The RSA 21 edition is the currently authoritative version.

It affects every firm working in public traffic space: an excavation, a patch, scaffolding on the footway. The RSA is the technical basis; the binding determination is made by the authority’s traffic order .

Standard plans: the starting point

The RSA contains standard plans – ready-made patterns for typical situations. They are the practical core: instead of designing every safeguarding arrangement from scratch, you choose the matching standard plan and adapt it.

Typical situations for which patterns exist:

The last case is the most important one for Gefahrenstellenbeseitigung: a two-hour deployment needs different safeguarding from a three-week site.

What almost always has to be adapted

A standard plan is a pattern, not a finished solution. In practice the site deviates from the pattern – and it is precisely those deviations that decide the approval:

1. Carriageway width. Is enough width left for moving traffic? That is the most common reason a standard plan does not fit.
2. Sightlines. Bend, crest, parked vehicles – the advance warning has to start earlier.
3. Accesses. Property accesses, fire service access, delivery access.
4. Public transport. An affected stop turns a simple measure into one requiring coordination.
5. Pedestrians and cyclists. Alternative routes have to be named, not just the closure.
6. Duration. Beyond a certain standing time the requirements change.

A plan that survives the review

What the authority wants to see is manageable:

The effort nobody plans for

For a firm attending many small sites, the plan is rarely technically difficult – it is repetitive. The same half-carriageway closure, another street, another width.

Which is exactly why it pays to maintain your own variants of the standard plans as templates: drawn cleanly once, after which only the site, dimensions and period are adapted. Anyone starting from scratch every time loses more time in a month than the safeguarding itself takes.

It becomes practical when the plan is produced where the job sits: then it hangs on the same site as the Aufmaß and the invoice, instead of lying in a separate folder. On a query – or in an incident – that is the difference between searching and showing.

After erection: checking and documentation

The RSA does not end with the plan. In practice three things matter:

• Erect as ordered, not as planned. If the order deviates from the plan submitted, the order applies.
• Check regularly. Signs get knocked over, turned round, stolen.
• Document. A dated photo of the safeguarding as erected is, in an incident, the evidence that it was done correctly.

The duty to keep traffic safe stays with the executing firm – regardless of who drew the plan.

Frequently asked

May we use a standard plan unchanged? If the situation matches the pattern exactly, yes. That is rarer than it looks – usually at least the carriageway width differs.

Who may draw a traffic sign plan? There is no formal accreditation, but there is responsibility: whoever draws the plan should know the RSA. Many firms train one person specifically for it.

What is different for short-term work sites? For work of short duration the RSA provides its own simplified arrangements. With hazard sites that is the normal case – but the simplification does not remove the duty to safeguard.

Do we need our own plan for every site? For recurring work many authorities operate with standing or framework orders. Ask about them before you apply for every deployment separately.

How long is a traffic sign plan valid? The plan itself is a document with no term of its own – what governs is the period in the order. If the situation on the ground changes materially, for instance because the measure is extended, a new plan and a new order are needed.

Do we have to keep the plan on site? The order yes, as a rule. It has to be produced at an inspection and therefore belongs on the site, not in the office folder. A printout in the vehicle is usually enough in practice.

We do not know the German names of the signs. Is that a problem? On the plan, signs are identified by their StVO number, not by name – and a number needs no language. The number is also what the authority expects rather than a description. Keeping a short note beside the number in your own templates makes your work easier; only the number goes on the plan that reaches the authority.

Anatomy of a traffic sign plan

A plan that goes through without a query always contains the same elements – regardless of how simple or complex the site is:

“Remaining carriageway” is the most common cause of rejection of all. The authority checks whether the remaining cross-section suffices for the traffic to be expected – without a dimension it cannot, and the plan goes back.

Foot and cycle traffic: the most forgotten part

A plan that regulates only motor traffic is incomplete. What the authority expects:

• Footway closed? Then an alternative route has to be designated – if necessary a pedestrian walkway on the carriageway, safeguarded and lit.
• Observe minimum widths. An alternative route a pram cannot pass through is not one.
• Think about accessibility. Temporary ramps and tactile delineation are required depending on the situation.
• Cycle traffic. If a cycle track is closed, routing for cyclists belongs in the plan – sharing the carriageway is an order, not a matter of course.

These points cost minutes when drawing and a great deal more in an accident.

Templates instead of redrawing

For a firm with many small sites, your own collection of templates is worth having. Sensibly structured by situation, not by street:

Five templates cover, in our experience, the great majority of deployments. After that only the location, dimensions and period are adapted – a drawing task becomes a form-filling task.

Documentation: what to record after erection

The plan is one half, the evidence of implementation the other. What has proven itself:

1. Photo of the safeguarding as erected, from the direction of travel, with the signing recognisable.
2. Date and time of erection, documented.
3. Name of the person who erected and checked it.
4. Inspection rounds with dates – daily on multi-day measures.
5. Photo on dismantling, showing the proper condition.

Those five points are the difference between “we safeguarded properly” and “we can evidence that we safeguarded properly”. In the event of damage only the second counts.

It becomes practical when this documentation hangs on the same site as the Aufmaß and the invoice – then everything is together on a query instead of in three different folders.

Who may draw a traffic sign plan?

There is no formal accreditation as there is for a checking engineer. There is responsibility all the same, and authorities increasingly expect evidence that the person knows what they are doing.

Two routes have established themselves in practice:

1. Build your own qualification. There are courses on safeguarding work sites on roads, built on the RSA. For a firm constantly working in traffic space that pays off quickly – and the authority receives an application from a trained person differently.
2. Have it drawn externally. Engineering offices and specialised providers produce plans to order. Sensible for complex situations, expensive for eighty small measures a month.

The pragmatic mixture that works in many firms: a trained person in-house draws the recurring standard situations from templates, and anything unusual goes outside.

Whichever route: whoever is responsible for the plan should know the site. A plan produced at a desk from an address, without anyone having seen the sightlines and the accesses, is a source of error – regardless of who drew it.

In summary

The traffic sign plan is rarely a technical hurdle and almost always an organisational one: the same situation, again and again, with small deviations. Anyone who maintains standard plans as templates and keeps the plan where the job sits turns a recurring drawing task into a form-filling task.

How Levora uses standard plans as a starting point is on the page about traffic sign plans to RSA 21 ; the application route is described in Applying for a traffic order .