GKTM gets the green light

08/08/2016

Gary Keville Traffic Management Ltd is an industry leader in traffic management and control and they are the first port of call for clients who need all their projects, large and small, carried out to consistent safety and quality standards. Irish Trucker & Light Commercials sat down with Operations Manager 
Barry Bessant to find out more.

Construction related work and any related enabling works on the road or on the roadway can, in the absence of adequate planning, organisation and implementation, lead to unsafe conditions for workers and all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists. 

Traffic Management Plans are required under Chapter 8 of the Traffic Signs Manual and the Safety, Health & Welfare at Work (Construction) Regulations. Therefore, a Traffic Management Plan is an essential requirement to ensure systems are put in place to complete work safely.

GKTM is an extension of the already well established and highly regarded Gary Keville Transport Ltd. brand and was formed to fulfil all traffic management needs. Gary Keville Transport are heavy haulage and abnormal load specialists.

As Traffic Management specialists, they offer their clients the high standards of traffic related services for start to finish applications saving them time and money in their day to day business.

At GKTM, they believe in combining experience with vision to achieve maximum satisfaction and value to allow them to offer a full service in traffic control ranging from job surveys, to engineered plans, permits, and traffic control set-ups.

Services provided include traffic management, traffic control, consultancy, roads maintenance, events management and training.

“We pride ourselves on the standard of the service we deliver,” outlined Operations Manager Barry Bessant who played an instrumental role in setting up GKTM in 2009. “We have a huge amount of repeat customers. Quite often our service is seen as one of the more expensive but a large number of customers come back to us because of the quality of our service.

“For instance, we're unique in that we're the only company in Ireland who supply temporary pedestrian traffic lights. That is a feature that is generating more work for us. We always look for innovative and high tech solutions to solve long standing traffic problems.”

With thirty employees on the payroll, GKTM are currently working on a scheme in Ashbourne for John Cradock Ltd as well as the Con Colbert Road to Chapelizod bypass. A road realignment scheme is about to get underway in Cork while the evolving company's services were very much in demand when it comes to the Dublin, Cork and Limerick city marathons.

“Things are going well, we're busy enough at the minute and back up to the full capacity of crew,” Barry added. “We recently restructured the company into three divisions, TM Planning & Design, Hire & Sales and finally TM Safety Consultants, under the supervision of three project managers skilled in different areas and we're a better unit now.

“We work out of a four acre yard on the South Bank Road and are currently in the process of opening a second yard, two and half acres in size, on the East Wall Road. We're also looking at opening a sub depot in Cork, near Mallow. We're a growing and expanding business.”

As a service company, GKTM have secured a number of agency agreements with other major suppliers of traffic management equipment and have spent time using and testing all of the products we carry which means our clients are getting the best product for the price, taking into consideration usability, quality and performance.

In addition, GKTM can assist their clients in reducing workplace accidents through effective training and ensure they are compliant with legislation such as the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, which is applicable to every place of business in the country.

Their expert safety consultants and instructors provide clients with the practical solutions to their complete health & safety training requirements.

What are the challenges that GKTM face in the day-to-day running of their service?

“Other than our core staff, we have a huge turnover in terms of casual employees,” Barry answered.

“During our quiet periods, retention of quality staff is a problem. We lose our fair share during quiet periods and that has a huge impact on our business in terms of the investment in training. It means that, after a short period, we lose that investment.

“It's a very competitive market out there and getting the price right is always difficult. It would be fair to say that we've lost a number of projects purely on price but we've resisted lowering our price because we don't want to win a race to the bottom. It is our aim to be the best so that our clients can be safe in the knowledge that they will be looked after and the headache of traffic management can be taken away from them on their projects.”

Taken from Irish Trucker & Light Commercials magazine, Vol 18 No 9, November 2015