Afrit levels the playing field at Truck Test 2026

As the official trailer partner of Truck Test 2026, Afrit plays a pivotal role in ensuring that South Africa’s most ambitious truck comparison event delivers credible, independent results that operators can trust.

Afrit, one of Southern Africa’s leading trailer manufacturers, has been confirmed as the official trailer partner of Truck Test 2026 – the largest and most significant extra-heavy commercial vehicle (XHCV) comparison event ever staged in South Africa, and among the most comprehensive of its kind anywhere on the African continent.

Organised by FOCUS on Transport & Logistics and running from 10 to 12 November, Truck Test 2026 brings together 20 trucks from the world’s foremost manufacturers – including Daewoo, DAF, FAW, Foton, Hino, Iveco, MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Powerstar, Scania, Shacman, Sinotruk and Volvo Trucks – for rigorous evaluation under real-world operating conditions.

Standardisation: the cornerstone of credibility

At the heart of Truck Test is a productivity index – a composite measure of fuel consumption and average speed over a defined route that tells operators precisely how much work a truck delivers per litre of fuel. For this index to be meaningful, every vehicle must be tested under identical conditions.

This is where Afrit’s contribution becomes indispensable. The company will supply precision-engineered trailers of the same specification to every competing truck in the test. Without this standardisation, comparisons of fuel consumption and overall performance would be fundamentally compromised. With it, fleet operators, logistics companies and purchasing decision-makers can trust that the data reflects the trucks themselves – not variables introduced by differing trailer configurations or conditions.

“Afrit is proud to support Truck Test 2026 as the official trailer partner. Our trailers are engineered to exacting standards, and supplying identical units to all competing vehicles is something we are uniquely positioned to deliver. We believe rigorous, independent testing is essential for the industry, and we are pleased to contribute to a process that gives operators trustworthy data on which to base major investment decisions,” says Tjaart van der Walt, branch manager at Afrit.

“Afrit’s involvement ensures every truck is tested under exactly the same conditions,” adds Charleen Clarke, editorial director of FOCUS. “That’s what makes the results credible.”

A record-breaking event for a demanding industry

Truck Test 2026 is the most ambitious edition of the event in its history. The test route is designed to replicate the demanding environments South African truck operators navigate daily – a mix of highways, secondary roads and challenging gradients. Results are generated under real-world conditions, not laboratory settings – which is precisely what gives the findings their authority.

With fuel costs escalating sharply and operators facing increasing pressure to improve efficiency, the insights generated by Truck Test have never been more
commercially significant. Purchasing decisions in the XHCV sector represent multimillion-rand investments, so independent, comparable data isn’t a luxury, but a necessity.

Truck Test 2026 has received endorsement from the Road Freight Association (RFA), the Southern African Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF), the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport South Africa (CILTSA), the Transist Bureau, the Federation of East and Southern Africa Road Transport Associations (FESARTA), the African Union of Transportation and Logistics Organisations, and supply chain professionals body SAPICS. 

The event’s official partner ecosystem also includes Engen as fuel and lubrication partner, TruckScience as technical partner, Bandag as tyre partner, ZF as aftermarket partner, Ctrack as telematics partner and WearCheck partnering to deliver condition monitoring through oil analysis.