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Mercedes-Benz's TopFit Truck is a Bet For The Future

There are probably few people who know this, but there is a serious situation with the trucking industry in Germany, and not only.
Mercedes-Benz Actros TopFit Truck 7 photos
Photo: Daimler AG
Mercedes-Benz TopFit Truck ProjectMercedes-Benz TopFit Truck ProjectMercedes-Benz TopFit Truck ProjectMercedes-Benz TopFit Truck ProjectMercedes-Benz TopFit Truck ProjectMercedes-Benz TopFit Truck Project
According to Daimler AG, there are currently more than 800,000 professional truck drivers in Germany alone, but over 300,000 of them are going to retire in the following 15 years, meaning the industry is having a very hard time trying to attract younger people to what is an exponentially harder job.

Even fewer people probably know that Mercedes-Benz Trucks has been working on a project to counteract this situation in various ways since 2006.

The German engineers have been working mostly on sleep and the overall fitness and health of truck drivers with the help of the “TopFit Truck Project”.

“With the TopFit Truck project, Mercedes-Benz Trucks is therefore making drivers the focus of its research and development work to counter the lack of drivers by boosting the job's appeal,” explains Siegfried Rothe, Manager of Condition Enhancement at Mercedes-Benz Trucks. “The truck is the only vehicle that, as well as being a means of transport, is additionally a workplace, a living room and a bedroom.”

Some of the technical innovations developed after the original project were implemented in the latest generation of the Mercedes-Benz Actros, such as a wider bed, a better noise insulation to minimize noise pollution when truck drivers sleep in motorway areas, fresh-air management, reclinable driver seats in the power-nap position, with optionally available massage seat.

Since the project is ongoing, Siegfried Rothe and his project team have started to work using two new Actros 1845 tractor units to further develop the driver well-being concept. You can read more about the new TopFit Truck project in the press release bellow.
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press release
About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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