The tracked carriers are ideal for transporting heavy material, including steel beams, easily through small restricted access areas and smaller elevators, and less so. Less so now that the tracked carrier has become available in Australia. You can get to work or home with less stress and hassle that you would have experienced in the past with more traditional methods, using hand cranked or pedal cranked hoists. And what about safety?

It's important that you understand exactly what a tracked carrier and a trolley crane system do. In short, the former moves any heavy material with the assistance of a power grapple, while the latter does the same with the help of a hand crank/pedal system. Of course, they do it differently, but both systems involve undercarriage movement in a forward direction. So what this means? This means a safer environment and better control for all concerned.

A few things need to be understood about the various tracked carriers and the ability of the system to manage them. When there is no undercarriage wheels attached to the vehicle, they are known as "mono-track" systems. These track systems have the capacity to only move one weight. Anything heavier than this will only be able to pass through the tracks using the "powered grapple".

There are different types of tracked carrier chassis in use today. The most common ones are the fully encapsulated, armoured, fire-fighting, fully encapsulated, fire-fighting, and hydrostatic tracked carriers, most often fitted to medium to high-clearance trucks. Other considerations for the terrain tracked carrier include an armour thickness of up to and including twenty one inches and an anti-tune system. Depending on the application of the vehicle, the armour thickness may need to increase to over thirty inches.

Some tracked carriers use only a single tyre for the vehicle, while others can have four or more. This decision to select a single tracked tyre rather than multiple was made in order to allow the vehicle to have much better handling when travelling over rough terrain or loose gravel. An additional benefit is that single tracked tyres also allow for the use of "tire skirts" underneath the tracks. Tire skirts are connected to the tread by a series of strategically placed nozzles and reduce the amount of contact the tyres' edge has with the tracked surface.

Another type of tracked carrier has been developed by Bell Helicopters called the Bell AH-AS. It has been claimed that this model is the largest fully tracked carrier in the world, and can be used for everything from ground attack operations to hauling heavy construction material. It can even be equipped with a radio remote control. The Bell model uses the same tracked system of raising and lowering the ramp, and some Bell models are fitted with infra red illuminators to warn oncoming predators. This type of carrier would most likely require a larger deck area than most other models, as it has to allow the helicopter to get into the air without falling out of the sky.