On August 30, 2000, in Montréal, the Ontario and Québec ministers of transport announced that they had concluded an agreement in principle aimed at harmonizing load and size limits for heavy vehicles from both provinces. The agreement is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2001 but must obtain the prior approval of both governments.
This agreement is in keeping with various measures designed to harmonize vehicle load and size limits, such as the Agreement on Internal Trade and the memorandum of understanding concerning a federal-provincial-territorial agreement on vehicle load and size limits. In the case of Québec, this agreement is also part of a comprehensive strategy, dating back to 1991, aimed at promoting the use of high-performance vehicles from the standpoints of road safety, economy and road infrastructure preservation. This agreement will simplify standards for heavy vehicle owners and operators, and also shippers, thereby facilitating vehicle fleet management in both Ontario and Québec, increasing competitiveness, and facilitating compliance with standards. The Ontario and the gouvernement du Québec will benefit from having vehicles that are less damaging to the road network, easier to monitor and as safe as or safer than the heavy vehicles currently in use.
Requiring suspensions that enable the weight of a load to be equalized among the axles of a same group, requiring on-board load indicators to establish the load supported by certain groups of axles, eliminating auxiliary lift axles in three-axle groups and replacing them with self-steering axles in four-axle groups are concrete measures that will better preserve road infrastructures. More stringent standards for rear bumpers and the setting up of a program to evaluate the use of on-board monitoring systems, commonly called black boxes, will increase road user safety. From an economic standpoint, the elimination of certain incompatibilities and differences in load limits in Québec and Ontario will make Québec export industries and carriers whose vehicles use Québec and Ontario roads more competitive.
This agreement covers load limits for tandem axles, triple axles and four-axle groups. With regard to other standards, heavy vehicles and combination vehicles must comply with the legislation in force in each respective administration. The main vehicles covered in this agreement are truck tractors and semi-trailer combinations with five, six or seven axles.
Documentation
The documents are available in PDF format and must be opened using Acrobat Reader.
