BF3/BF4 Escort Vehicles – Escorting Your Abnormal Load

Escort vehicles: the condition many heavy haulage movements hinge on

Whether a heavy haulage movement can roll is decided not only by the permit itself but also by its conditions – and those regularly include an escort by BF3 or BF4 vehicles (German escort classification). If the prescribed escort vehicle is missing, or does not meet the requirements, the transport stands still. Oversize Transports provides escorts as a fixed component of our heavy and abnormal load transports: matched to the permit notice, aligned with the route and coordinated with the police and the authorities.

BF3 and BF4 – what lies behind the classes?

BF3: the standard escort vehicle

A BF3 vehicle is a specially equipped escort vehicle with yellow rotating beacons, a variable message sign system (WVZ) and a radio link to the transport. The variable message sign displays binding signs to following traffic – no-overtaking instructions, for example; the BF3 protects the heavy load from the front or rear and assists at bottlenecks and when turning.

BF4: with traffic control powers

The BF4 vehicle is additionally equipped so that its escort personnel may take on traffic control duties within the scope of the official order – stopping and directing traffic, for instance, to secure bottlenecks or lane changes. In many German federal states a BF4 therefore takes on duties that previously required a police escort; that makes transports more flexible to plan and reduces waiting time for police capacity.

When is an escort mandatory?

Whether and in which combination BF3, BF4 or the police must escort is laid down in the permit notice. The decisive factors are the dimensions and weight of the cargo, the specific route (motorway or rural road, bottlenecks, roadworks), night runs and the practice of the individual federal state. We do not read the conditions only once the permit has been issued: we factor the likely escort requirements into the feasibility study – so that escort vehicles and transport are dispatched together from the very first kilometre.

Scope of our heavy haulage escort service

• Provision of BF3 and BF4 vehicles in accordance with the conditions of your permit notice.
• Route coordination in advance: bottlenecks, bridges, roundabouts and passing places are matched against the transport planning before departure.
• Liaison with authorities and police where the permit notice additionally requires a police escort or route protection.
• Escorts abroad: on our corridors towards Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia we organise the country-specific escort rules – every country has its own requirements as to which vehicles with which equipment must escort.
• One point of contact: transport, permit and escort come from one plan with us, not from three service providers who first have to coordinate among themselves.

Typical deployment scenarios

Escort vehicles are rarely deployed in isolation with us; they are a building block of a planned transport: the over-width construction machinery movement on the motorway with a BF3 behind the load; the abnormal load in a night-driving window where a BF4 secures lanes so that no police escort has to be tied up; the multi-day leg towards Turkey where BF3/BF4 run on the German section and country-specific escort vehicles take over at the border. In all cases the same applies: an escort is only as good as its coordination with the permit, the route and the transport schedule.

Process: from the permit condition to the escorted run

In the feasibility study we assess which escort the route is likely to require and cost it into the fixed price. Once the permits have been issued, we dispatch escort vehicles and drivers to the approved driving times – including the night-driving windows that are frequently mandatory for abnormal loads. During the run, escort and tractor unit maintain constant radio contact; on multi-day legs along international corridors your personal project manager coordinates the handovers between the country-specific escort teams. That way the escort stays what it should be: a permit condition resolved – not a project risk.

BF2, BF3 and BF4 at a glance