Snow ploughs and gritter trucks: blades, wings, spreaders and the rules that name them

A gritter truck is a truck carrying a spreader: a hopper of salt or grit, a conveyor that feeds a spreading disc and, on many versions, tanks of brine. A snow plough truck is a truck with a blade on a mounting plate. Neither is a truck model: the equipment comes from its own makers, among them Aebi Schmidt in Switzerland and Henderson Products in the United States, and goes on carriers from pick-ups to three-axle trucks. Aebi Schmidt’s spreaders for trucks have hoppers of 4 to 12 m³ and its Tarron ploughs cutting edges of 2,700 to 4,003 mm. In the United Kingdom both vehicles are named in the schedule of exempt vehicles of the vehicle excise act, and in England and Wales a highway authority has a duty, so far as is reasonably practicable, concerning snow and ice on the highway.

Status as of 5 November 2026. Read on that day: section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 and Schedule 2 to the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 on legislation.gov.uk; §§ 35 and 38 of the German StVO; the Estonian standards body’s catalogue entry for EN 15597-1; Aebi Schmidt data sheets created on 10 July 2026; Henderson Products leaflets dated between May 2020 and March 2024; and product pages of Aebi Schmidt, Henderson, Fisher, Western and Boschung.

Gritter, spreader, plough, plow

The UK statute uses Gritters as a heading, for a vehicle “constructed or adapted, and used, solely for the conveyance of machinery for spreading material on roads to deal with frost, ice or snow” (Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994, Schedule 2, paragraph 20J). Makers write spreader: Aebi Schmidt for its Schmidt range, Henderson for its sand and salt spreaders. The European standard for these machines was titled “Spreading machines (gritting machines)” in its 2009 edition and “Spreading and spraying machines” in its 2020 edition.

Plough is the spelling of the UK statute and of Aebi Schmidt. Henderson, Fisher and Western write plow and call the curved plate of the blade the moldboard. For the work itself Aebi Schmidt writes both winter service and winter maintenance, and Henderson snow and ice control; the titles of the European standards have winter maintenance and, on EN 13021, winter service.

Plough blades

Aebi Schmidt’s catalogue also names straight, side and chassis ploughs. Henderson describes its severe-duty leveling wing as removing heavy snow or benching it back.

The text of the V90 fact sheet gives a blade 1,200 mm high and sizes of 2,890 to 3,790 mm, and the gallery of the Tarron fact sheet gives the MS 27.1 a working width of 2,740 mm; the tables in the same documents give the figures above.

Clearing width is narrower than the blade, and makers quote it with the blade at an angle. The Tarron MS 30.1 has a 3,000 mm cutting edge and clears 2,540 mm at 32° and 2,430 mm at 36°. Henderson states the same relation in feet: its 12 ft RSP has a cutting path of 9 ft 10 in at 35°.

Makers also quote an angle of attack: 7° on the Cirron, 25° on the Tarron, 70° on the D70 and 90° on the V90; approximately 5°, 10° and 20° as settings on the Henderson RSP, and 45° with a standard or 30° with a carbide cutting edge on the Henderson One-Way; 70° on the Fisher XV2 and 65° on the Western Pro Plus HD. Only the D70 document says what its angle is measured against: the road.

The cutting edge comes in several materials. Aebi Schmidt describes steel for hard or compacted snow, rubber for slush and for inner-city roads and parking lots, combi edges of steel, rubber and ceramic, GK edges of steel, rubber and corundum, and the TUCA SX with tungsten holders in rubber between steel plates. Henderson lists a one-piece cutting edge as standard on the RSP, with carbide and rubber as options. To pass obstacles, Aebi Schmidt’s blades use spring-loaded segments or what it calls an override system; Henderson offers a full moldboard trip or a cutting edge trip.

Mounting and carriers

Aebi Schmidt’s Tarron, Cirron and D70 have a height-adjustable mounting device or plate to suit different vehicle plates; the Cirron attaches to plates to DIN Form A or B, and Boschung says plates to all norms are available for its MF series. On the Tarron, Cirron and D70 a three-point lift with automatic transverse tilt compensation raises and lowers the blade, and two double-action swivel cylinders on the Tarron and D70 angle it. The SNK’s lift, lowering and swivel are hydraulic, from the vehicle’s hydraulics or from a compact electro-hydraulic unit on the mounting plate that needs only a power supply. Henderson counts more than 90 combinations of plow, push frame and hitch.

Truck makers publish their side of it. International’s snowplow sheet lists a front axle and a frame extension, set out on the International MV Series page, and the extreme off-road Mercedes-Benz Unimog has hydraulic plug connections at the front and rear for equipment that includes snow ploughs. Power take-offs in general are on power take-off explained, and the truck’s own tyres and chains on winter tyres and snow chains.

North American makers state the carrier by GVWR class. Henderson’s plow pages say class 3 to class 8 chassis and head the RSP, One-Way and Expressway pages Class 8 municipal. Henderson’s leaflets call it a division of Douglas Dynamics, and the Fisher and Western pages carry a Douglas Dynamics copyright line. Figures below are in the units published (1 ft is 305 mm, 1 in is 25.4 mm, 1 lb is 0.454 kg).

The spreader

Aebi Schmidt builds its Stratos from a hopper, a belt or auger conveyor, pre-wet equipment, a distribution system, a drive and a control system, with a mounting or demounting system to hold them on the carrier.

• Conveyor. A belt or an auger carries the material to the chute. On the Stratos D two separately operating augers empty a hopper split one third to two thirds, so that two materials can be applied together, in varying ratios or separately.
• Distribution. The material lands on a spreading disc, which Henderson’s leaflets call a spinner. On the Stratos a 490 mm disc gives a width of 2 to 10 m, a 660 mm disc 3 to 12 m and a 700 mm disc 4 to 14 m, with the pattern symmetrical or asymmetrical.
• Pre-wetting. Side tanks hold brine, which the distribution system mixes with the dry material. When the brine is switched on, Aebi Schmidt’s systems reduce the dry material automatically. Its documents write the mixture as FS 30, and FS 25 to FS 35 on the Stratos, without defining the notation; the Galeox NT fact sheet puts the tanks at about 30 % of the hopper volume. Henderson says pre-wetting reduces scatter and spread rates.
• Drive. Aebi Schmidt offers the carrier’s hydraulics, a wheel running at the rear of the truck, Rotopower, which takes its power from the rear wheel hub, and a diesel engine built into the spreader.
• Control. Panels in the cab set the dosage in relation to road speed. Add-on modules named for the Stratos include GPS, GPS-guided route assistance and temperature-dependent dosage. The only figures for the rate in these documents are on the tractor-mounted Traxos: 5 to 40 g/m² for de-icing materials and 40 to 300 g/m² for gritting materials.

The Stratos 100 and 120 are listed with vehicle hydraulics only; the Stratos 40 to 90 have all four drives. Trailer versions exist: the Stratos A40K and A50K, of 4 and 5 m³, at 2,415 and 2,440 kg, and the Syntos A, of 0.8 to 1.7 m³, at 790 to 1,200 kg.

The Stratos Lava adds a different method. Aebi Schmidt describes it for packed snow and ice where wet salt, brine and dry salt no longer have any effect: a diesel heater warms the water, the hot water is sprayed onto sand or small stones, and the warm mixture is spread and partly sinks into the icy surface. The fact sheet gives 45 degrees for the water before spreading and up to 90 degrees for the sand-water mixture, naming no scale. The maker says the surface keeps its grip for at least a week. The fact sheet says the Lava also suits normal winter road maintenance, and gives a spread of up to 3 m in Lava mode and up to 10 m in normal mode.

Henderson divides the liquid work into anti-ice, pre-wet and slurry. Its Hi-Tech Wedge Tank option gives the flat-floor MuniBody all three, with anti-ice coverage of up to three lanes.

Demountable and combination bodies

Aebi Schmidt’s truck spreaders can be fixed or demountable. The Stratos comes in two basic variants, one for demount legs, hooklifts and fixed mounting and one for ro-ro, and both can be demounted with a full hopper and full brine tanks; the Galeox NT with an empty hopper and full tanks. Hooklifts and skip loaders are on hooklift and skip loader trucks.

Henderson’s leaflet heads the MuniBody a hybrid spreader and dump body system. The maker calls the flat-floor version a year-round body between a dump body and a combination body, with winter and summer gate inserts; tipping bodies in general are on tipper trucks. Its BCS body conveyor spreader, which the maker says turns any dump body into a spreader, comes in 10 to 15 ft lengths with 520 or 900 gal of liquid.

Other municipal bodies on truck chassis have their own pages: road sweepers and water tankers and refuse collection vehicles.

European standards

The scope in the catalogue is that of the withdrawn 2009 edition of EN 15597-1: bulk, trailer and towed spreaders with speed-related spreading for winter service, spreading agents with or without pre-wetted agent, abrasive agents or brine. It excludes registration and approval and the requirements of automobile manufacturers, and it left safety to EN 13021. The scope of the 2020 edition was not read. The general part of the EN 17106 safety series, EN 17106-1, also applies to winter maintenance equipment and is set out on the road sweepers and water tankers page.

What national texts say

Two London schemes name these vehicles, each on its own page: the Direct Vision Standard and the Low Emission Zone in clean air zones and lorries.