Special Purpose Vehicles

What is a Special Purpose Vehicle?

A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) means:

  • a motor vehicle or trailer, other than an agricultural vehicle or a tow truck, built for a purpose other than transporting goods by road; or
  • a concrete pump or fire truck.
Table 1: Examples of SPVs (not a full list)
Example Description

An example of an articulated steering crane
  • Articulated steering crane.
  • Also known as a pick and carry crane.
  • May have 2 or 3 axles.

An example of a concrete Pump
  • Covers a variety of mobile equipment known within the industry as concrete placing equipment including:
    • line pumps
    • mobile boom pumps
    • satellite placing booms.

An example of a prescribed SPV
  • Includes all terrain cranes and city cranes.
  • At least half of the axles steer.
  • No more than two tyres per axle.
  • May also be an SPV on an all-terrain carrier.

An example of a truck based SPV
  • Built on ADR-compliant chassis.
  • Includes drill rigs, elevated work platforms, fire trucks and concrete pumps.

Operating conditions applying to Class 1 heavy vehicles

The Heavy Vehicle (Mass, Dimension and Loading) National Regulation (MDL) sets out mandatory conditions that Class 1 heavy vehicles must comply with; these include general conditions and additional conditions relating to SPVs.

Details about the general conditions are summarised on Schedule 8 - Conditions applying to Class 1 heavy vehicles.

Some of the key mandatory conditions that apply to SPVs include:

Side lights for travel at night with long front projections

When travelling at night, a SPV with a projection extending more than 1.2 metres in front of the vehicle must have a yellow light fixed on each side of the projection.

The light must be –

  • fixed as far forward as possible, and shielded from the driver’s view
  • visible to any traffic approaching the vehicle from its front
  • visible to any traffic approaching the vehicle from the side on which it is fixed.

Rear marking plates and warning patterns

A rear marking plate must be fitted to the rearmost part of the body of an SPV. The rear marking plate must comply with VSB12 – Rear Marking Plates.

A warning pattern must be displayed on the left and right sides of any rigid projection extending more than 1.2 metres in front of the body of an SPV.

A warning pattern consists of diagonal stripes at least 150mm wide and alternatively coloured either red and white or black and white. The warning pattern must cover an area of at least 0.162m.

image is a visual representation of the red warning sign definition above

image is a visual representation of the black warning sign definition above
Figure 1: Example of warning patterns

Towing other vehicles

A SPV must not tow a vehicle, this includes a trailer.

The Heavy Vehicle (Mass, Dimension and Loading) National Regulation provides an exemption by permit to allow a crane to tow a single trailer if:

  • the crane has no more than 5 axles and
  • the load on the trailer includes only equipment required for the normal operation of the crane and
  • the swept path of the combination consisting of the crane and trailer turning a corner is not greater than what the swept path of the crane alone turning a corner would be.

Image is of a 5-axle all terrain crane with a 3-axle dolly
Figure 2: Example of an eligible SPV towing under permit access

Resources