Euro NCAP warns nearly half of city distribution trucks aren’t safe enough for our cities

LEUVEN, BELGIUM – At this month’s Smart City Expo, in Barcelona, Euro NCAP warns that nearly half of tested urban distribution trucks aren’t safe enough for our cities.

Announcing the test results for seven trucks from the increasingly popular city distribution category, experts from Euro NCAP, the car safety organisation, reveal that models from DAF, Isuzu and IVECO all fail to meet the CitySafe standard, which is awarded to trucks that combine excellent driver visibility and hazard alerts with advanced automatic braking systems designed to prevent collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.

Leading the test results is the MAN TGL, which achieves the first five-star rating for the truck manufacturer and earns a CitySafe commendation. Models from Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Volvo however all earn a four-star rating and CitySafe status.

The findings are significant. As cities grow and e-commerce demands surge, 12-tonne city distribution trucks have become the backbone of modern freight transportation. Operating across highways, suburban roads, and densely populated city centres, these vehicles share the streets with more vulnerable pedestrians, cyclists, and micro-mobility users. Euro NCAP testing reveals which models do a good job of protecting truck drivers and other urban road users. It also revealed that none of the vehicles tested were available with a lane keeping system, despite often travelling from faster roads into the city.

Euro NCAP’s work also gives fleet operators, transport authorities and cities the information required to make informed purchasing decisions and strongly encourages truck manufacturers to raise the necessary safety standards across all sectors. While manufacturers are making commendable strides across the areas of good visibility and active crash-avoidance technology, Euro NCAP calls on the industry to tackle the absence of Lane Departure systems in many of the trucks working in this important sector.

MAN TGL
5 Stars, CitySafe

The MAN TGL makes a compelling case in the city distribution category, securing a maximum five-star Euro NCAP rating alongside a CitySafe award. The TGL achieves an outstanding 89 per cent Safe Driving score, driven by excellent direct vision and an optional Camera Monitoring System (CMS) with adaptive e-mirrors that adjust field of vision to best suit speed and driving environments. It also delivers a category-leading 71 per cent in Crash Avoidance, proving highly capable of assisting the driver to avoid frontal collisions with other vehicles or vulnerable road users. Crucially, the TGL achieves a perfect score in low-speed turning manoeuvres that are devised to help protect cyclists from trucks turning across their path. A cornerstone to the TGL’s performance is that its Turn Across Path protection system always operates, unlike some systems that require the use of indicators. The TGL's area for improvement lies within the Lane Departure Collisions safety assessment. Like all other trucks tested here, it operates without a system that can prevent the truck straying out of lane should the driver be distracted.

Volvo FL
4 Stars, CitySafe

The Volvo FL delivers a robust performance, securing four stars and the CitySafe award. In Safe Driving, it scores 78 per cent, backed by strong direct vision. Visibility is enhanced by an optional lower door window and a 360-degree surround view camera system. In Crash Avoidance, the Volvo FL attains 62 per cent, matching high frontal collision performance. However, its low-speed turning protection is not as effective as the MAN TGL’s, because its Cyclist Nearside Turn system only helps the driver once indicators are in operation. Additionally, the level of standard safety equipment is less comprehensive than some rivals, and a Lane Keeping system is absent.

Renault Trucks D
4 Stars, CitySafe

Built on the same platform as the Volvo FL, the Renault Trucks D achieves four stars and the CitySafe award. It scores 78 per cent in Safe Driving, because of good direct vision with optional lower door vision window, and optional camera monitoring systems. The Renault scores 62 per cent in Crash Avoidance, proving effective at helping the driver avoid a potential forward collision. Its low-speed manoeuvring around a cyclist is constrained (like the Volvo FL’s) by requiring indicator activation to trigger interventions. Again, there is no Lane Keeping assistance.

Mercedes-Benz Atego
4 Stars, CitySafe

The popular Mercedes-Benz Atego achieves four stars and the CitySafe award, distinguished by high levels of standard equipment. It earns 77 per cent in Safe Driving, supported by good direct vision and strong scores for Vehicle Assistance thanks to its adaptive cruise control and speed assistance functions. Significantly, no camera monitoring system is on offer. In Crash Avoidance, it cannot reach the MAN TGL’s performance and achieves a score of 56 per cent. However, in the Cyclist Nearside Turn, it performs well and can detect cyclists without the operation of the indicators.

DAF XB
3 Stars

The DAF XB achieves a three-star rating but falls short of earning CitySafe status. It achieves 66 per cent in Safe Driving, supported by good direct vision and an optional lower door window, but no CMS system was available at the time of rating. It loses points in its Crash Avoidance performance, scoring just 36 per cent, partly due to a lack of any Cyclist Nearside Turn protection, and only adequate protection in forward collision scenarios. While providing good driver vision, its limited active safety technology makes it better suited to suburban or highway duties than dense, busy city centres.

Isuzu F-Series
2 Stars

Marking Isuzu’s first vehicle evaluation by Euro NCAP, the Japanese-built F-Series earns a two-star rating with no CitySafe award. The truck achieves 67 per cent in Safe Driving, with the best direct vision of all these trucks due to the narrow pillars of the cab, a deep windscreen and the commanding driving position. However, it falls behind in Crash Avoidance testing, scoring just 29 per cent, a reflection of relatively poor active protection of vulnerable road users in frontal collisions and the inability to intervene when cyclists are positioned at the side of the truck when making a turn.

IVECO Eurocargo
2 Stars

The Eurocargo receives a two-star rating and no CitySafe award. It scores 58 per cent in Safe Driving, hampered by comparatively poor direct vision with no camera monitoring system offered by IVECO. In Crash Avoidance, the Eurocargo scores a lowest-in-group of 20 per cent. While its vehicle-to-vehicle AEB was adequate, it scores no points for pedestrian and cyclist frontal protection, no points for cyclist turn protection, and nothing for lane departure. Lacking good protection of vulnerable road users, the Eurocargo requires further improvement if it’s to be fit for safe operation in the city.

As cities re-engineer their infrastructure to build smarter, cleaner and safer urban centres, the commercial vehicles serving our communities must keep pace with change. These 12-tonne trucks are the workhorses of modern e-commerce and municipal supply chains, navigating high-density areas every day where driver visibility and active crash avoidance are matters of life and death. So, it is particularly concerning that of seven models tested, three failed to meet Euro NCAP’s CitySafe standard.

Euro NCAP’s testing also lays bare a glaring omission across the city distribution truck category. Not one of the seven manufacturers fits their urban distribution truck with a Lane Keep Assist system. Given that this type of vehicle frequently transitions between high-speed highways and suburban and inner-city environments, lane-departure incidents are an ever-present danger. Leaving out proven, life-saving lane assistance technology is an unacceptable blind spot that manufacturers must address.

MAN’s TGL showed how to make a truck safer for the city. Securing a five-star rating and a CitySafe award demonstrates that excellent levels of vision and active collision avoidance can be successfully integrated into this category of commercial trucks. MAN has set a benchmark for what a smart city truck should look like.

Matthew Avery, Director of Strategic Development Euro NCAP