A singling unit for articles stacked in a nested configuration includes at least two stacks of articles stacked in a nested configuration, an extractor group to extract single articles from each stack, and a conveyor to receive the articles singled by the extractor group and to transport them along an advance direction arranged in at least one row substantially parallel to the advance direction. The extractor group is configured to deposit on the conveyor the articles extracted from the stacks in a number of rows smaller than the number of the stacks.

A road cone deployment and collection system comprising including a chute having an upper road cone holding section and a rear opening at the bottom of the chute for road cone deployment and a front opening at the bottom of the chute for road cone collection. A road cone retention and release mechanism is configured to hold a stack of road cones, separate and release one road cone at a time from the stack to the chute for deployment from the rear opening, and add a road cone to a stack of road cones collected from the front opening of the chute and raised to be added to a stack of road cones.