The four ‘cone trucks’ the Department of Infrastructure’s highway services team use over the TT period arrived in the island earlier this week.

The DoI hires four specialist cone trucks that are usually seen on Britain’s motorways for the duration of the annual two-week motorcycling festival.

A spokesperson for the team said: ‘They are used to by our staff to deploy and collect the safety cones which are an integral part of the one-way set up on the A18 Mountain Road.

‘Without this kit it would not be practical to daily prepare the road for practice and racing, and later revert to one-way traffic in a timely manner.

‘The trucks were loaded up with cones yesterday (Thursday) and will be first used today (Friday) when the Mountain Road closes at 9.30am to allow the final preparations take place ahead of the first qualifying session of TT 2024 on Monday.

‘The road will reopen again at 4.30pm when it will be one-way from Barrule Park in Ramsey to the Creg-ny-Baa in Onchan.

‘The Mountain Road will remain one way until 9.30am on Tuesday, June 11 when it will close once more for work to allow it to revert to two-way traffic.’

Roads close on Bank Holiday Monday (May 27) for the first qualifying sessions of the event.

The course in the area of Barrule Park closes at 8.45am, with the Bungalow and the rest of the Mountain section shutting at 9am. The remainder of the course will shut at 10am. Roads are due to reopen again no later than 9.30pm that evening.

Evening qualifying sessions follow on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with a further afternoon session on Friday, May 31. Roads begin closing for this at 11.15am and are due to reopen no later than 4.30pm.