Developing a Euro NCAP Safety Rating for Commercial vehicles

Project Scope

Euro NCAP is committed to Vision Zero but before this project all of their excellent safety work was focussed on passenger cars. Passenger cars are the most numerous road vehicle and they are involved in a large proportion of death and serious injury on the road. However, light commercial vehicles (LCVs up to 3.5 tonnes, or vans) represent one of the fastest growing vehicle types on our roads. Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs exceeding 3.5 tonnes, or trucks) are over-involved in fatalities, with around 1.5% of registered vehicles contributing around 5% of traffic (vehicle km) and around 14% of fatalities. Vision Zero cannot be achieved without substantial safety progress in commercial vehicles.

This is why Euro NCAP committed to extending their ratings and the first safety ratings for vans was launched in 2020. In 2023, they have announced that they will soon begin ratings for HGVs

OUR Role in the Project

Apollo has been involved with the Commercial Vehicle Working Group since its inception in 2018. Initially we were commissioned by Thatcham Research to provide specialist advice on commercial vehicle safety and to contribute analyses of casualty data and scientific literature to support the justification for the ratings, the performance aspects to be rated and the development of test and assessment protocols.

In 2022, Euro NCAP began funding our involvement directly and we formally took up the role of Secretary of the Working Group and extended our work into liaison with industry and other stakeholders, development of novel concepts to account for differences in the communication of results, to consumers for cars but to substantial businesses for HGVs. We were one of the leading technical authors of the published roadmap document. We are also now supporting accredited Member Laboratories in undertaking track test work to validate draft protocols and provide evidence to contribute to the setting of boundary values for the emerging rating scheme.

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