Do “smarter trucks” equal better protection?

Thousands of truck hijackings, billions in losses… all in just five years. Yet, the industry continues to invest in smarter trucks while ignoring the smartest asset on any route – the driver behind the wheel.

Merel van der Lei, CEO of Wyzetalk – a digital employee experience platform connecting large, dispersed frontline workforces – emphasises that each truck hijacking involves a living, breathing driver, not just the cargo that is targeted. “Despite massive rollouts of innovative systems and tech to track, monitor and secure assets, we haven’t really moved the needle in five years,” she points out.

Van der Lei adds that, according to crime statistics from the South African Police Service (SAPS), there were 354 truck hijackings recorded during the first three months of 2021. “By the third quarter of 2022, that number peaked at 561,” she elaborates. “Throughout 2023 and 2024, the figures rarely dipped below the 400-mark. As we closed out 2025, the industry was essentially back where it started five years ago.”

She says that industry analysts who factor in only the escalating costs of private security mitigation services and systems – based on numbers reported by bodies like SABRIC and the Road Freight Association (RFA) – estimate the total average impact on the South African economy to be between R2 billion and R6 billion annually.  “In terms of direct asset and cargo losses due to truck hijackings, the numbers rise even further,” she continues. “The Transported Asset Protection Association’s most recent 18-month monitoring period recorded R577 million in direct cargo losses out of 2,670 incidents. But only 3.4% of recorded crimes shared their actual financial losses. The R577 million figure represents a fraction of the real direct losses.”

For Van der Lei, the persistent baseline of crime suggests the industry is merely managing the crisis, not solving it. “In response, organisations have understandably over-indexed on technology. We have filled our trucks with GPS trackers, remote immobilisers and sophisticated vehicle telematics. Yet, the SAPS data proves that despite this massive capital expenditure on hardware, we are not really bending the curve. This is because we have focused almost exclusively on tracking the asset, while neglecting the most critical security component in the entire supply chain: the driver,” she explains.

THE RISING BURDEN OF THE SECURITY TAX

Logistics and freight security intelligence firm TSI Central Station has highlighted a disturbing trend in how the so-called “security tax” on logistics operations is spiralling. “A decade ago, security accounted for roughly 0.3% of total operating costs. By the end of 2025, that figure is estimated to have reached 2.3% on average, soaring as high as 4.1% for those transporting high-value goods like electronics, pharmaceuticals and spirits,” says Van der Lei.

“Much of this spend is reactive. Organisations hire blue-light gang mitigation teams and private escorts, but these are often just temporary fixes for a deeper wound. The real vulnerability lies in the profound information vacuum in which many drivers operate,” she points out. “While a control room in Johannesburg might see a truck moving on a digital map, the driver in the cab often feels more like a sort of ‘monitored asset’ than a protected partner. There is a psychological toll to being tracked without being informed. When a driver perceives GPS as a tool for management to monitor their speed rather than a system to ensure their safety, trust erodes.”

MOVING FROM ASSET TRACKING TO THE HUMAN SENSOR

Van der Lei stresses that we need to shift our perspective from tracking assets to empowering the human sensor. “The driver is the only element of the supply chain capable of real-time situational awareness. They are the first to notice the suspicious vehicle at the off-ramp or the unusual activity at a regular delivery point,” she notes. “However, for a driver to function as a sensor, they must be integrated into a two-way, real-time intelligence loop. Currently, many drivers rely on insecure and unauditable channels like WhatsApp to report hazards. This data is siloed and often lost in the noise.”

She argues that true resilience requires digitised, secure communication systems that allow for immediate, two-way flow: “It is about moving from a static heatmap of danger zones – often based on data that is months old – to a fluid intelligence ecology.”

Van der Lei sketches the scenario of a system where every driver on a specific route acts as a contributor to a live safety feed, much like the consumer-facing Google Maps model. “If one driver reports a ‘blue-light gang’ sighting or a sudden protest, every other driver in that sector receives an instant, targeted alert,” she explains. “Instead of simply reporting incidents after they happen, this system creates proactive mitigation.”

CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN THE CAB

Van der Lei says the shift toward e-commerce has also moved the risk further down the chain. “While long-haul freight carries the bulk, the last-mile delivery and courier vehicles are increasingly being targeted. These drivers often have even less support and lower levels of digital integration than their long-haul counterparts,” she expands.

“Organisations must ensure that digital transformation extends all the way to the cab, regardless of the vehicle size. This includes moving away from manual, paper-based logging,” Van der Lei continues. “It is common to see transport managers invest in expensive fatigue sensors, only for the data to be manually entered into a spreadsheet by an administrator days later. By the time a bottleneck or a risk is identified, the truck is already thousands of kilometres away – or worse, has already been targeted.” Automating these feedback loops, she says, saves administrative time while keeping real-time visibility intact.

WHY OPERATIONAL EMPATHY IS A SECURITY REQUIREMENT

Securing the South African supply chain cannot be achieved through engineering prowess or private security alone. “It requires operational empathy. We must treat the flow of information with the same urgency as the flow of cargo,” Van der Lei emphasises. “By digitising the experience of the driver and providing them with the tools to report hazards and receive intelligence instantly, we transform them from isolated targets into informed partners. They become the last line of defence in an increasingly hostile landscape.

“The survival of our logistics sector depends on treating the experience of our frontline employees as a critical, measurable asset. If we want to break the multi-billion-rand deadlock, we have to start by listening to the people behind the wheel,” she concludes. The message is clear: making trucks smarter means nothing as long as the people driving them are left in the dark.