Volvo Truck initiatives to prevent transport thefts

Long-haul truck operations are the lifeline of Europe; the link that joins together the continent’s various countries and permits trade between them. However, risks on the road have increased significantly over the past decade and today annual thefts from long-haul trucks total in the region amount to € 8.2 billion (£ 7 bn) – every single year.

Now new initiatives are being taken to prevent these thefts, both by the EU and by Volvo Trucks.

According to the commercial drivers’ International Road Transport Union (IRU) 17 per cent of Europe’s long-haul truck drivers have been victims of robbery during working day at some time over a five-year period. These robberies often take place at lay-bys with the thieves making off with everything from expensive electronic goods and tobacco to chocolate and shaving cream. According to Europol, goods to the value of about € 8.2 billion (£ 7 bn) are stolen every year in Europe. If all the peripheral costs are added in, such as repairs, replacement freight and police man-hours, the figure rises significantly.

“These attacks are a serious threat to the safety and security that commercial vehicle drivers have the right to enjoy in the pursuit of their profession. They are also a threat to the haulage companies and the high-value goods for which they are responsible whilst carrying out their haulage duties,” says Per-Anders Grösfjeld, marketing manager for transport information systems at Volvo Trucks. “Ultimately, even the end customers suffer as a result of delays caused by vanishing cargoes.”

It might be tempting to believe that Western Europe is a relatively safe place compared to other parts of the world, but Europol’s statistics reveal that many parts of Western Europe are on a par with traditional high-risk zones, such as Russia, Mexico and Brazil, when to comes to transport thefts,.

About ten years ago, the most common site of thefts in the transport chain was cargo terminals and warehouses. The solution was walls, fences and rigorous checks and controls, but that only meant that the problem shifted. Now it is the roads that have become the workplace of organised crime, and their victims are the long-haul trucks. It is out on the road that the cargo is by far at its greatest risk of being stolen, according to Europol.

The perpetrators are often international criminal organisations, but despite this, cross-border police co-operation has been rather ineffectual. Statistics showing crimes against the transport industry are unreliable since the police do not regard transport as a separate category, nor do they co-ordinate actions against this new type of organised crime. However, in the wake of the sky-rocketing increase in roadside piracy and the increasingly frequent violence used against drivers, the EU is now taking the initiative.

Anne E Jensen, substitute member in the EU Parliamentary Transport Committee, has been campaigning for a long time for the problem to be tackled with determination. “The long-haul truck is a very vulnerable part of the transport chain and that means, not least, a major risk for the drivers,” she says, explaining that the increased risk level in the profession may cause fewer people to choose to become drivers, adding, “And if road transport slumps, that’s going to be a serious problem for growth and for society in general.”

For the past few years now, she and the EU have been working to build safe and secure truck-stops for transport industry drivers. It is through Secure European Truck Parking Operational Services (SETPOS), a joint organisation initiated by the European Commission and bringing together the various relevant parties that roadside breaks are going to be made safer. The truck-stop sites are fenced in and patrolled so that the drivers can sleep safely and soundly without having to worry about protecting their cargo or being victims of violent crime. At present there are five such truck-stops - one in Britain (Ashford International Truckstop), two in Germany, one in France and one in Belgium.

Anne E Jensen explains, “More are on the way, but in Europe alone at least 200 secure truck-stops are needed.”

Organised crime has discovered that roadside theft involves a low risk at the same time as the potential gain is huge. That is why it is increasingly common for entire rigs to be hijacked, often at gunpoint. A big cargo can be stolen quickly and easily, so that in less than an hour the cargo can be reloaded onto other vehicles and vanish from the scene. The police have little or no chance of tracing the load – or the catching perpetrators.

This is an area that Volvo Trucks is addressing. As a truck manufacturer, the company is tackling the problem from the dual perspectives of the driver and the vehicle.

In order to safeguard goods transport, Volvo Trucks has taken the first step by launching Security Service, a supplement to the Dynafleet transport information system in Europe. With this system, the truck is under constant surveillance. By working together with Securitas, Volvo Trucks offers subscribers a service whereby they can press an alarm button in an emergency situation to alert the police or Securitas personnel.

“However, there is so much more the industry has to do to tackle this problem seriously,” says Jonas Thorngren, transport security expert at the Volvo Group.


Together with an outside partner, Volvo Trucks is now developing a lockable fifth wheel which can be remotely controlled, thus preventing the trailer from being separated from the truck and disappearing.

The next stage in the security system provides protection from theft of the whole rig. With the help of a manual alarm, or a system that triggers an alert as soon as the truck passes a predetermined geographic perimeter, it will be possible to either prevent the truck from starting or to gradually restrict its speed until it comes to a complete halt. Since the driver has no control over any part of this process, his or her safety is not jeopardised.

“Having said that, the solution lies in more than just technology. The driver’s knowledge and his or her routines are immensely important,” says Jonas Thorngren.

According to a new EU directive starting this October, every driver must undergo at least 35 hours of training within a five-year period. Volvo Trucks has developed a training programme that puts the focus on the driver’s safety awareness. The spotlight is both on increasing know-how about crime situations and thus reducing the risk of being the victim of crime and also reducing the risk level if anything goes wrong when you are the victim of a crime.

“When the criminals realise that the security systems surrounding the entire rig force them to take ever-larger risks, and the driver is in no personal danger him or herself, we feel that few criminals will feel it’s worth the effort,” says Jonas Thorngren.