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RTS 18

New Zealand on road tracking curves for heavy vehicles 2007

RTS 18 On road tracking curves for heavy vehicles 2007 provides guidance to road controlling authorities and engineers in the geometric design of roads and intersections, and replaces a similar document New Zealand on road tracking curves which was published by the Land Transport Safety Authority in October 1995.

The document is divided into two sections, with the first section providing a general guide to the types of design vehicles that should be used and also which design vehicle to use if other vehicle types are being designed for.

The second section includes a suite of tracking curves for the selected design vehicles turning through a range of different angles at different radii.

The standard design vehicle types have been reviewed and the number of them has been reduced from seven (in 1995) to four (2007). The changes in the 2007 document include:

  • The large Rigid Truck has increased in length to (11.5 metres) and is now close in size to the 1995 Urban City Bus, so the large Rigid Truck tracking curve should be used for 2 axle urban buses. Note that rigid urban buses are allowed to be 12.6 metres long now (usually with 3 axles) and the Tour Coach tracking curve should be used for these long urban buses.
  • The long semi-trailer combination has increased in length to 18 metres (with 4 rear axles allowed). The revised tracking curve for this vehicle should be used for all on road standard heavy trailer combinations (including the 20 metre long B train and the rigid truck towing a full or simple trailer).
  • The tracking curve for the 90 percentile car has been removed from this document as nearly all road intersections need to be designed for heavy vehicles. For information on the geometric design of facilities for light vehicles, refer to AS/NZS 2890.1 Parking facilities – Off street car parking (which is available from Standards New Zealand).

RTS 18

  • RTS 18 text (A4 size, PDF 251 KB)
    (Please note the copyright statement and disclaimer on page 2 of the text)

The curves are provided in two formats: PDF and JPG (which can be imported into various graphics and drafting software packages).

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Page created: 30 August 2007