3.5 tonnes is not where this stops

Above 3.5 tonnes a great deal changes at once in Europe: the toll systems, in some countries the speed limits, the driving licence category. Only the planning stays the same task. So Camperada treats weight as what it is: a parameter of your vehicle, not a special case. Whether an uprated low-profile, a coachbuilt on a heavier chassis or an A-class: routing, the clearance check and the trip plan work with your real figures, free and without an account.

Your weight feeds into the calculation

The route is calculated with your dimensions and weight, and it does not stop at 3.5 tonnes. A higher weight is simply a value there, like the height: roads with a weight limit below it recorded in OpenStreetMap stay closed, and above 3.5 tonnes so do roads with a recorded lorry ban. What the map data lacks, the routing cannot know. Whether your figures could be applied is stated permanently beneath every calculated route. If they could not, you see a car route and you know it, rather than relying on an assumption.

The clearance check takes weight limits seriously

At the push of a button, Camperada walks the finished route once more and looks up to 50 metres either side of it for restrictions from OpenStreetMap. For heavy vehicles what counts above all is maxweight: bridges and town centres with a weight limit that a vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes simply drives past. Every location whose limit falls below your weight appears with its limit and the road it belongs to, and can be shown on the map. The planner deliberately calls them possible restrictions: a restricted road can also cross your route without you driving on it. The decision stays with you, and the sign on the bridge has the last word.

How the check works in detail, for height, width and length as well, is on the page about vehicle dimensions and restrictions.

Tolls above 3.5 tonnes: named, not guessed

For tolls, the 3.5 tonne line is the most important number in Europe: in several countries the vignette ends there and a heavy vehicle system begins. A planner that shows you a car tariff there is calculating for a different vehicle. Camperada shows instead where you are liable and which system applies:

• Austria: instead of the vignette, the distance-based GO-Maut, charged by kilometres driven and number of axles
• Switzerland: instead of the vignette, the flat-rate heavy vehicle charge by weight and days in the country
• Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia: distance-based systems such as DarsGo and MYTO CZ
• Hungary: here the category D2 vignette applies above 3.5 tonnes too, and the plan states its amount

For the heavy vehicle systems the plan deliberately gives no amount: they charge by quantities that are only settled on the road, and any figure would be a guess. The note tells you what to prepare for without feigning a precision that does not exist.

The distance-based tolls in Italy, France and Croatia do stay with you as an estimated range: France puts motorhomes over 3.5 tonnes in class 3, while Italy and Croatia set the class by height. Camperada measures your route’s kilometres within the toll network and applies the tariff band of your class. Special toll sections such as the Brenner or the Tauern motorway also appear along the route, but above 3.5 tonnes as a named item without an amount: a separate operator tariff applies there. How the planner keeps fixed amounts, ranges and notes apart is on the page about trip costs and tolls.

Speed limits over 3.5 tonnes: at every border

Many European countries set their own speed limits for motorhomes over 3.5 tonnes, sometimes on ordinary roads too, and in places a separate alcohol limit. The planner puts a fact sheet for the country at every border on your route with the speed limits for your weight, together with lights, required equipment and low emission zones; both weight classes side by side are on the country page. More on the page about the rules abroad.

You enter your own dimensions, and that is deliberate

For newcomers who do not yet have a vehicle, the planner offers vehicle classes as starting values, from camper van to A-class. These reference figures deliberately stop at 3.5 tonnes: they reflect the hire market, and that effectively ends at the limit of a category B licence. Anyone travelling heavier settled the licence question long ago and knows their figures from the registration document. Those are exactly what you enter, and exactly what everything then works with: the routing, the clearance check and the toll class. With a free account your vehicle is stored and is one click away on your next plan.

What does not change above 3.5 tonnes

Everything else calculates from your figures anyway, rather than from a class assumption. Fuel costs come from your consumption and tank size, both freely enterable, with refuelling stops on the map and prices per litre by the countries you cross. The trip plan divides the route into daily stages with overnight stops and site search; more on that on the page about stage planning. And at the end the route goes to your sat nav as GPX.

Comparing tools right now? What the ADAC route planner and Camperada each do is set out in the comparison with the ADAC route planner.