Australasia also puts commercial van safety to the test for the first time.

16 December 2020

Australasia’s independent voice on vehicle safety, ANCAP SAFETY, has broadened its field of view to review the active safety performance of a range of commercial vans – a segment not previously put under the microscope.

Fifteen (15) light and medium/heavy commercial vans were put to the test to evaluate their collision avoidance, or ADAS, capability. The comparison tests were spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic which has generated an increase in the use of commercial vans on Australian and New Zealand roads following a rise in home delivery services and online purchases.

As part of ANCAP’s adoption of common test and rating protocols with Euro NCAP three years ago, ANCAP introduced the assessment of active (collision avoidance) safety systems including low and high-speed autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane support systems (LSS), speed assistance systems (SAS) and occupant detection systems.

69 vehicles have been tested and rated by ANCAP since then, yet due to generally longer produce life-cycles for commercial vehicles, and the current scope of the ANCAP safety rating system covering passenger vehicles, SUVs and LCVs up to a GVM of 3.5 tonne, many of the commercial vans currently on the market are unrated, or have ANCAP ratings that pre-date the introduction of ADAS testing.

A summary of the results can be found here.