The Trucking Network is concerned with preserving road heritage and ensuring the safety of road users. It allows the MTQ to have an overall vision of the management of heavy vehicle traffic on the Québec road network.
The Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) implemented its road network for trucking on public roads coming under its jurisdiction (major network) in 1996. The operating classification of the Ministère’s road network is intended to prioritize roads based on their respective operations, with the major network including the highway, national road, regional road and collector road networks.
Objectives targeted by the road network for trucking
Direct heavy vehicles on a more appropriate road network in order to minimize deterioration of the infrastructures and to reduce the inconveniences that trucks outside the major arteries present;
Facilitate road control so that the objectives of network protection, road safety and equity amongst carriers can be more easily reached;
Allow municipalities to more easily plan the heavy vehicle traffic in their territory.
Policy of heavy vehicle traffic on the municipal road network
The Ministère des Transports is responsible for the management of heavy vehicle traffic on its own road network (major network). For their part, the municipalities are in charge of the management of heavy vehicle traffic on public roads whose maintenance is their responsibility.
Thus, a municipality may adopt a regulation or an ordinance to prohibit, with or without exception, the movement of any road vehicle. Since trucking may be a local, interregional, interprovincial or international activity, the MTQ considers that it is of paramount importance to ensure a uniform application of the rules concerning the movement of heavy vehicles at the Québec level in order to maintain a fair balance between economic development, road network protection, and the mobility and safety of road users. This is why any municipal proposal to prevent heavy vehicle traffic on the municipal road network must be submitted and approved by the ministre des Transports before it can come into force.
To this end, the MTQ established a policy entitled Heavy Vehicle Traffic on the Municipal Road Network . This policy concerns the movement of heavy vehicles on a public road as defined in the Highway Safety Code and whose maintenance is the municipality’s responsibility. It allows the managers of the municipal road network who wish to prohibit the movement of trucks on the roads of their municipality to coordinate their regulations with the governmental restrictions to ensure the free movement of goods over all of Québec’s territory in particular.
Policy Objectives
Inform the municipalities of the following:
the criteria that the ministre des Transports uses to authorize the municipalities to prohibit access to certain categories of road vehicles on sections of roads of the municipal road network;
the general rules that apply to the preservation of the operational and safety aspect of the road network;
the rules pertaining to the limitation of loads on a bridge as well as the limitation of the lengths and loads of road vehicles using the public roads, particularly in periods of thaw;
road vehicles that may be affected by the movement prohibitions as well as the exceptions authorized for local delivery as defined in the Regulation Respecting Road Signs;
the types of placards that must be used to properly indicate movement prohibitions on a public road pursuant to the Regulation Respecting Road Signs;
the proper administrative rules for submitting requests for the approval of regulations prohibiting movement to the ministre des Transports.
