Map layers & hazards

Map layers

Toggle what the map draws:

• Places: your search results.
• Hazards: road restrictions and active fires (below).
• Roadworks: roadworks, closures and incidents (below).
• Floods: live flood warnings (below).
• Weather warnings: severe weather warned by a national forecaster (below).
• Emission and charging zones: France's Crit'Air zones and London's charging zones (below).
• Toll gates: toll barriers and free-flow gantries (below). Off until you switch it on.
• Nature areas: national parks, nature reserves and wildlife rest zones (below).
• Drone zones: where a drone may not fly, needs permission first, or flies under conditions (below). Off until you switch it on.
• My places: your saved places.

Every button is always there, including the layers that only cover some countries. They used to come and go with what was near you, which made the row change shape as the map moved and left you unable to switch a layer off from somewhere it had nothing to draw. A count of zero is an answer.

Each button shows how many of that thing are on the map. When a layer is off, its icon is greyed out and crossed through, so you can tell at a glance what you are looking at.

Each layer draws on whichever sources cover where you are looking, chosen for you. The button is the only control: switch a layer off and everything it drew disappears, whatever supplied it. Tap any pin to see which source that particular one came from.

Hazard overlay

Radar shows the road hazards that matter to larger vehicles: low bridges and weight, width, and length limits. A banner warns you about restrictions coming up in the direction you are heading.

Tap any hazard pin to see the full detail: what the limit is, how far away it is, which source it came from, and the road it applies to. Where several restrictions sit at the same spot, they are listed together, and any that your vehicle would not clear are shown first.

Restrictions cover Great Britain and the island of Ireland, so Northern Ireland and the Republic have them too. On England's major roads they come from the official National Highways data; everywhere else in that area they are the limits mapped by OpenStreetMap contributors, which is where the village low bridges and canal underpasses that actually catch motorhomes are recorded.

Seeing the hazards is free. Having a route automatically avoid them, based on your vehicle's dimensions, is part of the Premium vehicle profile.

On a very wide search, Radar draws the nearest few hundred restrictions rather than every one, so the map stays quick to use. When it has done that it tells you, and narrowing the radius brings the rest into view.

Roadworks and road events

Radar draws roadworks, closures, accidents and other things blocking the road on their own layer. Free, and no account needed.

Tap a pin for the detail: what is happening, which road it is on, the dates it runs, who published it, and whatever description the road authority wrote. That description is in the country's own language, because it comes straight from the people who put the signs out and translating a safety message is a good way to change what it means. The heading above it is in English, so you always know what kind of thing you are looking at.

The colour tells you what to expect without opening anything:

• Orange is work under way now.
• Red is a road closed, an accident, or something in the carriageway.
• Grey is planned but not started yet, and the pin says so in words as well.

A few are marked Urgent, with a red outline and the word on the pin when you open it. That is the road authority's own label for emergency work that was not planned, a burst water main rather than a scheduled resurfacing, so it is worth a second look when you see one. Only the Dutch feed uses it, and only rarely.

Planned works are shown up to a month ahead. That is the point of the layer as much as today's closures are: it is the difference between finding out about a shut road now and finding out on the day.

Where the road authority publishes the shape of the affected stretch, Radar draws it as a line so you can see how far it runs. Where it publishes only a position, you get a pin, and the pin marks the start of the stretch rather than its middle, so the works may carry on past it. The pin says that too.

Which countries

Country	What you get	How current it is
The Netherlands	Roadworks, closures and events for the whole country, from every council, province and Rijkswaterstaat district merged into one national feed. Mostly planned work.	Every 6 hours
France	Roadworks, closures, accidents and obstructions on the national road network, published live by the regional road authorities through Bison Futé.	Every 30 minutes

One gap in France is worth knowing about. The French feed covers the state-run national roads, not the toll motorways. Those are run by private companies who publish nothing to the national service, so Radar has no data at all for the A7, the A9 and the rest of the péage network. An empty stretch of toll motorway means we cannot see it, not that the road is clear.

On a very wide search Radar draws the nearest few hundred rather than every one, so the map stays quick. When it has done that it tells you, and narrowing the radius brings the rest into view.

Active fires

Radar shows active fire detections from NASA satellites on the hazard layer, free, with no account needed. They are picked up by satellites that pass overhead a few times a day, so a detection is usually a few hours old rather than live.

Tap one to see when it was spotted, which satellite saw it, how confident the reading is, and how much heat it gave off.

A detection is a heat reading, not a confirmed fire. From orbit, a steelworks, a gas flare, or a bonfire can look much the same as a burning hillside, and the satellite data does not say which is which. Radar works out the difference by watching which spots light up again and again: somewhere that burns most days is industry, not a wildfire, and it is left off the map.

That takes a few weeks of history to learn. Until Radar has enough, it shows no fires at all rather than a list it cannot vouch for, and it starts showing them on its own once the data is good enough. So an empty fire layer is never an all-clear on its own, and you should always follow local warnings and signs.

Toll gates

Radar draws toll gates on their own layer, in amber, free and with no account needed. It covers every country whose map data Radar holds, so it takes in the M6 Toll and Britain's tolled bridges and tunnels as well as the French autoroutes and the alpine tunnels. The layer starts switched off: a toll you have already decided to pay is not something you need warned about, so you turn it on when you are planning around the cost.

A dashed pin has no barrier, and that is the one to watch. Two things share this layer:

• A toll barrier is the ordinary kind. You stop, you pay, the road tells you it is there.
• A free-flow gantry has nothing to stop at. Cameras read your plate as you drive under at full speed, and you owe the money afterwards, usually online within a few days. Miss the signs and the first you hear of it is a fine posted to the address on your V5C. These are spreading: England's Dartford Crossing works this way, and so do a growing number of French autoroutes.

Tap a pin for the operator, and how you can pay where a contributor has recorded it.

Radar does not tell you the price, because nobody publishes it. There is no machine-readable list of toll charges for any country Radar covers: each motorway company issues its own table once a year, usually as a PDF. Where a contributor has noted a price on the map we show it, word for word, and say it came from OpenStreetMap. Treat it as a hint, not a quote.

What your journey costs depends on your vehicle, not just the distance. France sorts vehicles into classes by height and weight, and a motorhome is rarely in the cheapest one: over 2 m tall puts you in class 2, roughly half again what a car pays, and over 3 m tall or over 3.5 tonnes puts you in class 3 with the lorries. Most toll calculators quote the car price. If you have filled in your Premium vehicle profile, a toll gate's detail tells you which class you are likely to be in, so the number you budget for is your own.

Flood warnings

Live flood warnings are shaded on the map in amber, red, and severe, and kept up to date. Free.

Weather warnings

Severe weather warnings are shaded on the map on their own layer, free and with no account needed. Spain is the first country to have them, from AEMET, the national met agency: heatwaves, snow, high wind, coastal storms, fog, avalanches and the rest, each drawn over the area it applies to.

The shading follows the forecaster's own traffic light, so it means the same thing on the map as it does on the local news and the road signs: yellow, orange, red, worst last.

Tap one for the area it covers, what is expected, any advice the forecaster gave, and the time it runs until. The text is in English, because AEMET publishes every warning in Spanish and English and Radar reads the English. That is not true of the roadworks layer, where the description is deliberately left in the local language.

A warning is a forecast, not an observation, so treat it as the reason to check the local picture rather than as the whole picture. Follow the official warnings and the signs on the road.

Radar draws the nearest few hundred on a very wide search, and tells you when it has done that.

Other countries will follow: most European met services publish warnings in the same standard format, so the next country is a new feed rather than a new feature.

Drone zones

Where you may not fly a drone, where you need permission first, and where conditions apply. Off by default, so switch the Drone zones layer on if you carry one; Radar remembers your choice.

Zones are coloured by their rule, the same four everywhere: red means no drone flying, amber means permission is needed first, yellow means conditions apply, and a grey outline is a zone with no restriction that the publisher lists for information. A dashed outline is temporary: a NOTAM, or a zone that starts within the next week. Tap a zone for its name, class, height band, when it applies, the authority to ask and any conditions.

This is a planning aid, not a clearance. The zones come from the official publishers on the cadence they publish, and a NOTAM can be issued at any time. Check the NOTAMs and the publisher before you fly.

Which countries

• United Kingdom. Every aerodrome's flight restriction zone and runway protection zones, the danger areas and the prohibited areas from the UK AIP, plus the live NOTAMs that matter to a drone, both from NATS and used with their permission. The NOTAM circles are drawn at the radius the notice gives.
• Luxembourg. The national geographical UAS zones.
• Switzerland. The federal geographical UAS zones, including the nature reserves where flying needs authorisation.

More countries follow as their aviation authorities confirm the data may be reused.

Nature areas

Radar shades nature areas in green on their own layer, free and with no account needed. It covers Switzerland and Scotland today. The layer is on to start with.

They are green rather than red or amber on purpose: this is a land designation, not an alert, and a nature reserve should not read like a low bridge.

Tap any area for its name, what kind it is, the wording the authority itself used, its size in hectares, and a link to the official record where there is one.

Switzerland

From the federal inventories published by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment. Four kinds of area are drawn:

• Federal game reserves, which are wildlife rest zones and the strictest of the four.
• Water and migratory bird reserves.
• Mire landscapes, the protected bogs and wetlands.
• Parks of national importance, including the national park.

A solid outline is stronger than a dashed one. Game reserves come in two grades and the difference matters on the ground, so a fully protected area is drawn solid and a partly protected one dashed and lighter. Where the authority did not state a grade, Radar says so rather than guessing, because "not stated" and "no restriction" are not the same thing.

Why this matters for an overnight stop. Switzerland has no national list of where you may park overnight, because that is decided canton by canton, twenty-six different ways. What is broadly true everywhere is that staying the night inside one of these areas is not tolerated. So treat the green shading as somewhere to move on from before you settle for the evening, and read the signs at the spot itself, which are the thing that actually binds you.

One reserve is often several shapes, because the authority publishes each grade separately, so you may see a solid area with a dashed one around it. That is one reserve, drawn honestly.

Scotland

From NatureScot, the government's nature agency. Five kinds of area are drawn, around 945 shapes in all:

• National Nature Reserves, the country's finest wildlife sites.
• Local Nature Reserves, designated by councils and usually close to a town.
• Country Parks and Regional Parks, which are managed for visitors.
• Nature Reserves, a small group of other designated sites.

Scotland is not Switzerland, and Radar does not pretend otherwise. Scotland gives you a legal right of responsible access across most land, wild camping included, under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. So the shading here tells you what you are standing in, not that you have to leave. Some places do have their own local byelaws, most famously the camping management zones around Loch Lomond, so check the signs at the spot.

Because NatureScot publishes no grading, every Scottish area reads "Protection level not stated". That is honest rather than unhelpful: it means the agency said nothing about access, not that Radar failed to look.

Scotland's two national parks are not shown yet. The Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs are not in the data NatureScot publishes openly, so their boundaries need a different source. The same goes for Sites of Special Scientific Interest and the European wildlife designations, which are left off deliberately: they control what can be built rather than where you can go, and there are seventeen times as many of them.

Emission and charging zones

Plenty of cities now charge you to drive in, or bar you altogether if your vehicle is not clean enough. Radar shades those areas on the map, free and with no account needed. The layer covers France, London, Bath and Bristol, and Scotland's four cities today.

Tap a zone to see what the authority has published: what each type of vehicle must meet, what it costs if you do not, the hours it applies if it is not around the clock, and a link to the official page. The van and motorhome line is listed first and in bold, because it is routinely a different answer from the one for cars and it is the line most Radar users need.

Zones that have not started yet are drawn faded and dashed and labelled "not yet in force", which is what you want when you are planning ahead rather than driving today. Zones that have finished are left off the map.

Two things to keep in mind everywhere:

• Radar shows you what the authority published. It does not tell you whether you personally may drive in, so check the official link before you rely on it.
• Where an authority has published no limit for a type of vehicle, Radar says not stated. That is not the same as no restriction.

France: Crit'Air zones

Most large French cities have a zone à faibles émissions, an area you may only drive into if your vehicle carries a good enough Crit'Air sticker, with a fine if it does not. These are shaded purple, and the popup gives the minimum sticker for each class of vehicle along with links to the city's own information page and to the legal order behind it.

The zones come from the French government's national register and are refreshed daily.

London: the ULEZ, the LEZ and the Congestion Charge

London runs three separate schemes over the same city, and Radar draws all three.

• The Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) covers cars, vans and motorhomes up to 3.5 tonnes, at £12.50 a day if you do not meet the standard. It runs around the clock except Christmas Day.
• The Low Emission Zone (LEZ) covers the heavier end, and it is the one most checkers never mention. It shares its boundary with the ULEZ exactly.
• The Congestion Charge is central London only, at £18 a day during charging hours, and it has nothing to do with emissions: a brand new electric van pays it in full. It is drawn in amber rather than purple for that reason, so you can tell the two kinds of rule apart at a glance.

If you drive a motorhome, read this bit. Over 3.5 tonnes you are outside the ULEZ and inside the LEZ, on the very same boundary, where the charge is £100 or £300 a day rather than £12.50. A diesel motorhome between 1.205 tonnes unladen and 3.5 tonnes is inside both, and has to meet a different standard for each. Because the two zones share an outline, Radar draws them as one shape and lists every zone that applies in a single popup, so the LEZ answer cannot hide underneath the ULEZ one.

The charges and standards are checked by hand, and Radar tells you when. Only the boundaries are published as open data. Nobody publishes the money or the emissions standards in a form software can read, and they change when Transport for London announces it, so each zone shows the date a person last checked its figures. The Congestion Charge went from £15 to £18 on 2 January 2026, which is exactly the kind of change that date is there to catch. Check the official link before you rely on a number.

Bath and Bristol: the Clean Air Zones

England's Clean Air Zones work differently from London's, and the two cities in the West of England work differently from each other. Radar draws both.

What you pay is decided by what your V5C says your vehicle is, not by how big it looks. Every Clean Air Zone is given a class letter, and the letter says which kinds of vehicle are charged at all:

• Bath is a class C zone, which never charges cars or motorcycles, whatever they emit.
• Bristol is a class D zone, which charges cars too.

So the same motorhome can be free in Bath and £9 a day in Bristol if it is registered as a car (M1), and £9 in both if it is a van conversion (N1). Over 3.5 tonnes it is £100 a day in both. It is the line on the registration document that decides, so it is worth knowing which yours says before you drive into either.

Bath has one concession worth claiming: a privately owned heavy goods vehicle, which is what a large motorhome often is, drops from £100 a day to £9 if you register it with the council. Bristol publishes no equivalent, and we checked rather than assumed.

Both zones charge only if your vehicle does not meet the standard (broadly Euro 6 for a diesel, Euro 4 for a petrol), and both run around the clock. As in London, the boundaries are open data but the charges are checked by a person, so each zone shows the date that was last done.

Scotland: the four Low Emission Zones

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen each have a Low Emission Zone covering the city centre, and Radar draws all four.

These are a ban, not a charge, and that is the important difference. There is no daily fee and no way to pay your way in. If your vehicle does not meet the standard you should not drive into the zone, and if you do you get a fine. They are drawn in rose rather than purple for that reason, so you can tell at a glance that this is not a zone you can buy a day in.

The fine starts at £60, halved to £30 if you pay within 14 days. It then doubles every time you go into the same zone again within 90 days, up to £480 for a car or light goods vehicle and £960 for a minibus, bus, coach or lorry. It drops back to £60 once you have gone 90 days without a breach.

The standard is the same in all four cities, which is unlike England, where every Clean Air Zone sets its own:

• Euro 6 diesel or Euro 4 petrol for cars and vans.
• Euro VI diesel or Euro IV petrol for buses, coaches and lorries.

They run around the clock, every day. Motorbikes and mopeds are not covered at all, which is unlike London's Low Emission Zone.

If you drive a motorhome, which of those two lines applies to you follows what your V5C says your vehicle is, not what it weighs or looks like. Scotland does not publish a rule for motor caravans as such, so rather than guess on your behalf Radar shows you both lines and links the official vehicle checker. It takes a registration number and gives you a straight answer, and it is worth doing before you drive in.

Glasgow has been enforcing since 1 June 2023, Dundee since 30 May 2024, and Edinburgh and Aberdeen since 1 June 2024.

As everywhere else on this layer, the boundaries are open data but the rules are checked by a person, so each zone shows the date that was last done.

The five other English Clean Air Zones and Oxford's zero emission zone are not on the map yet. There is no single national feed for them, so each one is its own piece of work. An area with no zone drawn on it is not a guarantee there is no scheme there.

Showing your location

Follow your own position on the map, with three states:

• Off: your position is not shown.
• Showing: your position and heading show on the map.
• Following: the map re-centres on you as you move. Drag the map to drop back to Showing.

A heading arrow points the way you are facing, from compass, GPS course, or motion. All free, no account needed.

This only draws your position on your own screen, in this browser, for as long as you leave it on. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent to us. It is not the same as Tracking, which records a Nomad van's journeys and keeps them.

In your Nomad van

On the Radar screen in your Nomad van you do not have to turn anything on. The van tells Radar where it is, so your position is on the map from the moment it opens.

You are drawn as the van itself, not as the blue dot, and it faces the way you are travelling. The map is centred on it when the screen opens and then follows you as you drive, which is what you want on a screen you glance at rather than hold. Drag the map to look at something further ahead and it stops following, exactly as it does in a browser.

Some vans have no satellite positioning of their own and take their position from whoever is driving, through their phone. On those, the map shows that person's profile photo in place of the van, so it is clear whose position you are looking at rather than the vehicle's.

The category buttons under the map search around the van as you drive. Press one and the pins keep up with you, rather than staying where you were when you pressed it, so "where is the next filling station" stays a live answer for the whole journey. Filling stations show the price of your fuel on the pin itself, using the fuel chosen in the cab, so you can compare what is ahead without opening anything.

Searching from the van screen. A round Search button sits among the map's round buttons on the van screen. Press it and the same Search panel you get on a phone slides up: type a postcode, a place name or a what3words address and the map goes there. Searching somewhere is you asking to look at it, so the map stops following the van while you do. To come back, press the button at the bottom left of the map, which now reads Follow the vehicle: the map returns to the van and follows it again from there. The button never turns on the tablet's own location, because the van already knows where it is.

While you are driving, nothing on the map asks you to type. When the van is in Drive the Search button is put away, the categories in the Filters panel become large tiles you can hit without looking twice, and the buttons for reordering the groups are hidden until you park. Which scene the van is in is the van's decision, not the map's: see The map while you are driving.

The layers are laid out for a screen in a vehicle. On the van screen the layer control is a grid of large square tiles, three to a row and two on the narrowest screens, rather than the list of rows you get in a browser. The whole tile is the switch, so there is nothing small to aim at, and the tiles are spaced well apart: on a moving vehicle a mis-hit turns off the wrong layer, and noticing that costs you a second glance at the screen. The list of nine layers comes down to three rows, so the sheet covers about a third of the map card instead of all of it.

The Premium vehicle features that come with your Nomad licence apply on the van screen too, so routing there knows your van's height, width, length and weight exactly as it does when you are signed in on a browser. See Routing. The Premium map tiles apply on the van screen too, so a driver with Premium gets the higher-detail map in the daytime. For a while they did not: the van was drawing the standard map whatever the driver was entitled to, which is fixed.

Saving a place from the van does not ask you to sign in, because there is no sign-in on the van's screen. Pick who is driving from the faces beside the map and Radar saves places to that person's account. See Saved places.

The van's own position is used only to draw the map. Keeping a record of where you have been is Tracking, which is a separate switch in the cab.

Map tiles

The standard map is free. Premium unlocks higher-detail Google map tiles, including satellite imagery. See Accounts & Premium.