Chemical Transportation Rules in India: PESO, TREM Cards, and Tanker Safety

Class A is petroleum with a flash point below 23°C. Class B is 23°C and above but below 65°C. Class C is 65°C and above. Rule 75 requires a licence to transport Class A or Class B in bulk by road. The railway, acting as a carrier, and a licensed refueller moving inside one aerodrome, are the exceptions written in that rule. Rule 62 says this part of the rules does not apply to Class A in a quantity not exceeding 100 litres, or to petroleum of any other class otherwise than in bulk, subject to rule 67, or to petroleum moved by the Defence Forces of the Union. A 20,000 litre tank is bulk. The small-quantity sentence will not save it.

Which vehicle rules apply depends on the class. Rule 71, the 24 volt circuit and the battery isolator, is for petroleum other than Class C. Rule 70, the spark arrestor, the exhaust in front of the tank, and the flame arrester on the air intake, is drafted for petroleum other than Class B carried otherwise than in bulk, and other than Class C. Read the rule before the gate pastes it onto every acid tanker and every Class C vehicle in the district. Rule 73 still wants the vehicle attended, and above 5 kilolitres of petroleum other than Class C it wants the driver and one more person while the vehicle is moving. Rule 74: do not park a vehicle carrying petroleum within 9 metres of a fire, or on a public road, or in a congested area.

Road practice follows the nine dangerous-goods classes: explosives, gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, oxidisers and organic peroxides, toxic and infectious substances, radioactive material, corrosives, and miscellaneous. A state may add a curfew or a route ban. The class does not change at the border. The movement condition can. Class 1 explosives and some Class 7 movements are a different permission set. Do not treat them as a chemical tanker lane, and do not use this article as their standard operating procedure.

Methanol is the worked liquid later in this guide because its expansion coefficient and its specific gravity are on a published physical-property sheet. Its flash point on that sheet is low enough that a reader will want to call it petroleum Class A. Do not. Petroleum is the Act's product. Methanol is UN 1230, a Class 3 flammable liquid, and it follows the chemical tanker file: the panel, the card, the shell, and the drawing. Where a petroleum rule is used beside it, the sentence says so.

CMVR rule 134 requires the panel on both sides and the rear. The English text of G.S.R. 590(E), Gazette of India Extraordinary, No. 287, 2 June 1989, says the class label is not less than 260 mm square, the technical name is not less than 50 mm high, and the emergency name and telephone are not less than 50 mm high. The Hindi text of that same notification says the class label is not less than 250 mm square. G.S.R. 338(E), Gazette Extraordinary No. 114, 26 March 1993, inserts the trip sticker and renumbers the old sub-rule. It does not change the size. The India Code consolidation prints 250 mm and also prints a United Nations class number, the digit in the rule 137 table, at not less than 100 mm. That 100 mm sentence is not in the 1989 Gazette text that was opened. The drawing in that Gazette is an 800 mm by 600 mm panel. It marks the UN number line and the Hazchem line at 15 mm, and the emergency-dial line at 30 mm. Those drawing marks sit below the 50 mm prose minimum, so they are not permission to print the name or the telephone under 50 mm. Measure the class label against the English text: under 260 mm square is a fail against that text.

The telephone on the panel has to be the number on the card, and it has to be answered for the hours that tanker can be on the road. A switchboard that closes at 18:00 is not an emergency number for a vehicle that will still be on a highway at 23:00. Rule 133 requires the driver to keep the written TREM card in the cab for the movement. The card is the action sheet for that UN number: hazards, protective equipment, spillage, fire, and first aid. Put it in a language the driver can use. English plus Hindi is plant practice on many lanes. It is not a letter size in rule 134.

The consignor owns the accuracy of the product identity, the UN number, the Hazchem code, and the emergency actions. The carrier owns the presence of the card, the panel, and a driver who can produce both at a check post. The driver owns the endorsement on the licence. The vehicle owner owns the PESO or SMPV certificate for that registration. Mixing those owners is how a gate argues with the wrong company for an hour and then loads anyway.

The material safety data sheet (MSDS) is the plant document behind the card. It does not replace the card. Put the UN number, the proper shipping name, the Hazchem code, and the emergency number on the dispatch record in ZAFTYS TMS, so the gate is not checking a photocopy against the product from the last trip. The document sequence for an ordinary industrial load is in Industrial TMS for India. This product adds the panel, the card, and the PESO certificate to that sequence.

Concentrated sulphuric acid at ambient temperature is often carried in mild steel. Dilute acid attacks that steel. The concentration on the order is the specification, and a tank that was right for 98 percent acid is the wrong tank for a dilute stream from a different process. Hydrochloric acid is a lining decision. Stainless steel is not a universal acid tank. Methanol and many solvents go in stainless: SS316 where chlorides or a purity specification require it, SS304 where the product and the cleaning chemical allow it. The fabricator's corrosion table beats a fleet average.

A food or pharma claim, where the specification says so, needs a dedicated SS316 shell and a wash certificate. A previous acid load ends that claim. Compressed or liquefied gas belongs in an SMPV pressure vessel, not in an atmospheric chemical tanker. If the product family changes, the certificate has to change with it. A petroleum approval does not become an acid approval because the shell is stainless.

A dedicated road tanker is a vehicle. An ISO tank is a tank in a frame. T11 is a typical liquid tank container. T14 or T20 is the step when the pressure or the relief specification requires it. The tank can move on a container chassis, and on rail or a ship when those approvals exist. The chassis still has to be rated for the loaded tank. Twistlocks, the frame, and the axle groups are part of the load, not a detail after the tank hire. A skeletal trailer bought for empty boxes is not rated by the tank's data plate.

Do not publish a claim that an ISO tank is cheaper. Price the lane: tank hire, chassis hire, lifts, cleaning, and the empty. A road tanker is one asset and one empty return to the same plant. An ISO tank can be staged. It can also disappear into a container yard. The empty is a commercial line. It is also a product-control line, because a tank that sat for a week with an unknown heel is not the tank you approved on Monday.

For petroleum, rule 64 is the capacity rule, and it is easy to misread as a chemical-tanker rule. Net carrying capacity is 97 percent of gross for Class A and Class B, and 98 percent for Class C. The rule says the limit is to be read so the tank may contain the specified quantity under varying temperature. It does not say you may fill the gross and call the extra a temperature allowance. On a 20,000 litre gross shell the Class A or Class B net is 19,400 litres. The Class C net is 19,600 litres. A tank truck or tank semi-trailer shall not exceed 25 kilolitres net. An aircraft refueller shall not exceed 50. A tank trailer shall not exceed 5.

Rule 66 is the trailer rule. Not more than one tank trailer, and only behind a vehicle used exclusively for petroleum. A tank trailer is not attached to a tank semi-trailer or to another trailer. Where a tank trailer is attached to a tank truck, the two together shall not exceed 15 kilolitres. No tank trailer is attached to a tank truck whose own net capacity exceeds 12 kilolitres. A 14,000 litre truck does not tow a tank trailer, even if the trailer is inside its own 5 kilolitre cap. In a thickly populated area that combination also needs the written permission of the district authority. Rule 65: a tank vehicle meant for petroleum in bulk is not used for another purpose unless the Chief Controller authorises it in writing. Rule 69: the vehicle does not carry some other article while it is carrying petroleum, unless that too is authorised in writing.

Hardware that fails a serious petroleum gate is the hardware in rules 70 to 72, on the vehicles those rules cover. Spark arrestor on the exhaust. Exhaust in front of the tank. Flame arrester on the air intake. Circuit not over 24 volts where rule 71 applies, battery isolator in the cab, junction boxes sealed. Rule 72 is every vehicle transporting petroleum by road, including Class C: one 10 kg dry chemical powder extinguisher, or an equivalent, away from the discharge faucet, and one 1 kg dry chemical powder extinguisher in the cab. An acid that is not petroleum is outside rule 72. A foot valve and an emergency shut-off have to move. A bonding lug has to be continuous to the shell, not a painted stud. If the PESO drawing shows an item the rules do not name, its absence is still a reject. If the drawing does not show it, do not invent a fitment and then fail every tanker in the district.

The worked case is pure methanol, and it is a workshop. The Methanol Institute sheet gives a cubic expansion of 0.00149 per °C at 20°C, and 0.00159 per °C at 40°C. This screen uses 0.00149. Load at 25°C. Peak 48°C. The rise is 23 degrees. On a 20,000 litre shell, 20,000 times 0.00149 times 23 is 685 litres, about 3.4 percent. The volume left is 19,315 litres. The same sheet gives specific gravity 0.7866 at 25/4°C, which is 0.7866 kilograms per litre. Mass is 19,315 times 0.7866, which is 15,193 kilograms.

Hold the beta at the 40°C figure and the same rise needs 20,000 times 0.00159 times 23, which is 731 litres. The mass falls to about 15,157 kilograms. The difference is about 36 kilograms. That is the sensitivity of the coefficient, not a second product and not a safety factor you may ignore. Confirm both numbers on the MSDS before anyone uses the sum. If the approved drawing already keeps a larger vapour space, the drawing wins. The sum is the check. It is not a licence to fill tighter.

Petroleum Rules rule 64(2) is the road-tanker sentence, and only for petroleum. Class A and Class B: net capacity 97 percent of gross, so a 20,000 litre gross shell certifies 19,400 litres. Class C: 98 percent, which is 19,600 litres. Filling this methanol workshop to that 97 percent line would put 19,400 litres in the shell, 85 litres more than the 685 litre screen allows. At 0.7866 kilograms per litre that is about 67 kilograms of product the heat screen says should still be vapour space. The petroleum percentage is not a permission to ignore the methanol sum, and the methanol sum is not a permission to rewrite rule 64 for diesel.

The 5 percent figure is rule 124(4), and it is a fixed storage tank at an installation, not a road tanker. The air space shall be not less than 5 percent of the tank's capacity, or the space prescribed in the approved tank code, whichever is less. "Whichever is less" means a code that keeps 3 percent is the rule for that tank, not a blog that remembers only the 5. On a 20,000 litre road shell, 5 percent would be 1,000 litres of vapour and about 14,945 kilograms of this methanol, roughly 248 kilograms under the heat-screen load. That is a different tank and a different rule. Do not paste it onto an acid tanker, and do not paste it onto a petroleum road tank whose net capacity is already set by rule 64(2).

A part-filled atmospheric shell has a free surface. On a curve the liquid moves outward and the centre of gravity moves with it. The awkward case is a part load in one large compartment, not a brimful tanker and not a near-empty one. Fill compartments in the order the manufacturer gives you. Refuse a plan that leaves a free surface in one big compartment because the order was short. A short order is a reason to use a smaller compartment or a smaller vehicle. It is not a reason to send 12 tonnes rolling in a 20,000 litre single shell. This article does not certify a safe curve speed. The tanker stability note and the speed on the permit do that.

Compartment loading changes axle weights even when the total mass is legal. Weigh the combination. A legal GVW with a heavy rear compartment is still an axle offence. The 5 percent enforcement tolerance in the Motor Vehicles Act is not saleable payload. The same point is in the axle guide. On this methanol workshop the planning mass is 15,193 kilograms of product before you add the unladen vehicle. That mass does not tell you the axle groups. Only the weighbridge does.

Illustrative gate, not a case file and not a ZAFTYS incident. A petroleum Class B tank truck reports for a bulk load. The gross shell is marked 20,000 litres. The load sheet asks for 20,000 litres. Rule 64(2) certifies 97 percent, which is 19,400 litres, so the sheet is already 600 litres over the net. The PESO approval on the file names a different registration. A tank trailer is coupled behind it, and the truck's own net is above 12 kilolitres, which rule 66(10) forbids. The 10 kg extinguisher is on the vehicle. The 1 kg extinguisher is not in the cab, which fails rule 72. Any one of those stops the load. Together they are a vehicle that should not have been called.

A methanol tanker on the next bay is a different file. The order says UN 1230. The card in the cab is for the previous solvent. That is a no-load under the panel-and-card rule, before anyone discusses litres. If the card matches, the heat screen still caps this workshop at 19,315 litres and about 15,193 kilograms, unless the drawing keeps more vapour space. Do not "correct" the methanol fill up to 19,400 litres because the petroleum truck next to it is allowed a 97 percent net. Logging the reject in ZAFTYS TMS turns a shouted gate into a carrier record. A truck that waited and then failed is the same leak described in 5 hidden cost leaks in heavy industrial freight.