Highways, carparks, airports, docks and similar areas are usually marked out with lines and signs using either hot-melt or special paint. The traditional material used in the UK is hot-melt, but this is much more expensive than paint, although it has a longer wear life. In areas where black marks from tyres are common, it is preferable to be able to remake the markings to keep them clean, but this is not practical with hot-melt as this would lead to a build up of material above the surface. The lower cost of paint striping and the ability to restripe often to keep the markings clean, has lead to a gradual move towards paint. It has always been the most common method of line striping in many other countries around the world.
Airspraying of road markings is still used by some contractors, but it wastes paint through overspray and does not produce such sharp lines as airless spray. Also the airless spray causes a draught of air which tends to blow dust away just before the paint fan arrives, providing better adhesion of the paint. Line striping machines based upon petrol driven airless spray units, can be used to apply one or two lines at walking speed. The spray tip is mounted at about 6" above the surface, which is about half the spray distance for normal spraying, and is usually cut to obtain a sharper edge to the spray fan. A typical linestriper has two large pneumatic wheels at the back to give stability, and a smaller wheel at the front that can be turned to steer the cart. The small wheel can usually be locked in the straight ahead position to help produce straight lines. The paint bucket is carried on the cart. Useful accessories include a glass bead dispenser that drops glass beads into the wet paint behind the spray gun, to improve the reflectivity of the line. A folding pointer to guide the striper along the chalk line is helpful.
Line stripers are often used to coat tennis courts when they are set up with 2 wide fan spray tips at about 12" from the surface, allowing a single pass to cover a width of more than 2 feet. Whilst this can also be done with a hand spray gun, the advantage of the striper is speed as well as being self contained, carrying everything on the cart eliminating paint buckets, cables and hoses on the ground.
Truck mounted line stripers are available, capable of striping multiple lines in different colours up to a total of 36" wide at up to 10 mph. In the UK they are used mainly for marking airport runways and aprons. Powered pusher sit-on units are also available for the hand pushed machines.