Retro Traffic uses Hino 300 and 500 Series trucks across its traffic management and road safety operations, including cone trucks, truck-mounted attenuators (TMAs) and other specialised applications. The company choses Hino for reliability which maximises uptime plus its versatility, safety and the ability to tailor trucks to its demanding operational requirements.
For Daniel Glynn, General Manager at City Hino, the relationship with Retro Traffic goes back many years. =
“We started working with Retro Traffic back in 2017. They came to us looking to expand and bring uniformity to their fleet. Their fleet ranges from car-licensed 300 Series [CA1] cone trucks to 500 Series actuators with a 16 tonne GVM. Retro has been a very supportive customer, and is always challenging us to raise our standards
“Ciaran Deighan has been involved in every detail of their truck builds and has a keen eye for detail. He now has a fleet manager, John Little, looking after the fleet. It's worth noting that whenever you see Retro trucks on the road, they are always impeccably clean.”
Article by Peter Shields | Originally published by Prime Mover on 4 June 2026
In Good Hands
For almost 40 years Retro Traffic has been keeping motorists and workers safe around roadworks and construction sites. Prime Mover looks behind the company’s success and uncovers a captivating story.
Retro Traffic: Almost 40 Years of Road Safety
Established in 1987 by Peter Karlsson, Retro Traffic has been engaged on numerous projects, big and small, throughout its evolution. During recent years, this has included major projects such as the construction of the Rozelle Interchange, the Warringah Freeway upgrade, and the M1 extension at Beresfield.
Retro Traffic has also been a preferred contractor to Ausgrid (formerly Energy Australia) for the past ten years.
Peter Karlsson operated a backhoe when the M2 motorway was being built, and always an innovator, he imported some safety tagline from Sweden. He would arrive at the work site and before he would operate the backhoe he would cordon off the area. This led to him bringing more safety line to Australia which he sold along the East Coast. From this, Peter realised there was an opportunity to establish a traffic control company which he subsequently did and now, almost 40 years later, Retro Traffic continues to thrive in a vibrant industry.
Fiona McKendry has worked for the business for 19 years and spent the first year performing onsite traffic control duties before moving into the office and becoming skilled at formulating draft traffic control plans and becoming Peter Karlsson’s “right hand person”.
Arriving is Australia as Irish backpackers in July 2006 Fiona and partner Ciaran Deighan intended to be in this country for only nine months. Fortunately, they stayed and acquired half of the business from Peter in 2018 and have owned it outright since 2020.
Ciaran, who earned a degree in transport and logistics back in Ireland, joined Retro Traffic in a management role in 2013 after driving trucks, mostly doing work for Energy Australia.
A Fleet Built Arounds Hino Trucks
Since the full acquisition, the fleet has grown significantly from around 40 vehicles to more than 200, and the business outgrew its original premises and has since relocated to larger facilities in Sydney’s Rydalmere at which around 50 staff are based. Just like its vehicles, Retro Traffic’s premises are immaculate and include a well-equipped gymnasium for the staff, along with training facilities and an industrial sized truck wash.
In recent years Retro Traffic has expanded with a depot in Beresfield near Newcastle which supports work on the M1 extension. A new 2,000 square metre depot has also recently been established near Yatala to support local projects in SE Queensland.
The majority of Retro Traffic’s clients are Tier One construction companies including John Holland and Seymour Whyte, as well as electricity provider Ausgrid. Recent major projects on which Retro Traffic has provided traffic control services include the Rozelle Interchange.
“We did a maintenance contract on the Harbor Bridge for five years,” says Ciaran.
“We were the first privately owned traffic control company to ever work on the Harbor Bridge. We’re currently working on the Western Harbor Tunnel project as sole providers of traffic control.”
It’s not all just major infrastructure projects.
“We also provide a lot of our services to road maintenance operations such as asphalting, providing traffic control for major operators such as Boral and Fulton Hogan between Wollongong and Newcastle,” says Ciaran. “We’ve got utility companies as well where we are providing traffic safety during pole replacements and during storm emergencies when wires are down. So it’s a 24/7 operation, and we have people on call all the time.”
During early 2026 Retro Traffic responded to the potentially dangerous collapse of the Great Western Highway at Victoria Pass.
Ciaran has a high level of regard for his people.
“You don’t really respect what they do until you actually experience it yourself. They’re out there on the road and there’s B-doubles flying by and you’re putting your life in their hands. Drivers get frustrated at night when they don’t see anybody actually working, so they think, there is no need to slow down because there’s nobody there. But they don’t realise that the road shoulders are not there, or there’s barriers there, and the infrastructure on the road has changed.”
“We’ve had three TMA (Truck Mounted Attenuator) strikes in the last six months,” says Ciaran. “And two those were fatigue related where the driver fell asleep at the wheel and came into the worksite. Another guy was drunk on the M1 travelling over 100 km/hr and straight into the back of a TMA truck. He could have gone straight over ten workers. That could have been the case 15 years ago because the technology wasn’t around then.”
Hino 300 Series Cone Trucks & 500 Series TMAs
The attenuator equipment comes from Traffic Technologies in the USA and it fitted to the Hino 500 trucks locally. It is important to be aware of the weight distribution which changes significantly on the trucks whenever the attenuator deployed.
The Hino 300 Series “cone trucks” have been developed by Retro Traffic to provide the safest and most practical storage of portable signs and traffic cones as well as their implementation and collection.
“We’ve invested in Hino 300 Series Narrow Cabs, because they can take more weight than utes. I would say there’s lots of utes out there that are over their payload, which is why we’ve upgraded many of our own Isuzu and Ford utes’ suspensions.
The fleet also has Hino 300 Series Wide Cabs with GVM’s of seven tonnes.
“That is a challenge, because not many people have a Light Rigid licence,” says Ciaran. “So we train them and put them through a course. It comes at a cost, but that cost is less than if there was an accident so it’s a risk we weren’t willing to take.”
Looking at the fleet it soon becomes evident that Hino is the preferred brand.
“I drove Hinos myself when I was on the road, tilt trays and bogies. They’re a good truck,” says Ciaran. “The only trucks we have are Hinos. We’ve got 40 cone trucks, which are the Hino 300 Wide Cab with another ten currently on order. We’ve got 40 of the 4.5 tonne Hino 300 Standard Cabs, and we’ve got 28 Hino 500 attenuator trucks.”
A Long-Standing Partnership with City Hino
The trucks are sourced through City Hino in Western Sydney.
“We’ve got a good relationship with the guys out there. Especially during Covid, when it was hard getting a supply of trucks but they really looked after us. That was also a period of rapid growth for us. I think City Hino looks after us because we’re easy to deal with, and we reflect the brand well for them. Peter was very meticulous about how things were presented,” says Ciaran.
“And Fiona and I are still very much aligned with that. The range that they have works well for us. You have the 300 Standard Cab with which we do a lot of work around the city on tighter streets. They’re very versatile and with technology like the reversing cameras they’re easy to drive so drivers with a car licence aren’t really daunted by the size of them.”
Reliability Matters When Roadworks Can’t Stop
Playing such an integral part in the often complex field of road maintenance and construction, vehicle reliability is an important consideration.
“One of the reasons we went with Hino is the reliability. If we don’t have a truck on the road it costs us money to hire another truck,” says Ciaran.
“If we’re doing lane closures and traffic management, there could be many other
trades involved in those roadworks. When asphalting it could be another 50 trucks working inside the barriers, and if one of our trucks breaks down, then those other 50 trucks aren’t working. Then that has a knock-on effect to the client.
The Hino 500 range suits the TMA applications, particularly the shorter wheelbase models. The cone trucks run extra batteries to power the multiple flashing lights and the electronic screens with additional solar power panels located on the roofs.
“I’m going to sound biased, but I think we’ve probably got the best fleet in the industry which is very competitive, but we don’t sacrifice on our reputation and our safety record”.