Paris records 5.3 times more harsh driving events per trip than Berlin, Geotab data reveals

Berlin logs 225 harsh events per 1,000 trips, Madrid 1,088 and Paris 1,191

OAKVILLE, ON— 3 November 2026 — Geotab Inc. Open in new window (“Geotab”), a global leader in connected operations, video telematics and AI-powered insights, today published new findings from its European Urban Freight Efficiency Index on road safety, showing that the number of harsh driving events per trip varies more than fivefold across seven European capitals.

The analysis uses GPS-derived harsh acceleration, harsh braking and harsh cornering events from more than 130 million trips by Geotab-connected vehicles in 2025. Berlin records the fewest harsh events at 225 per 1,000 trips, roughly one event every four to five trips, followed by Dublin (315), Amsterdam (356), Rome (393) and London (462). Madrid (1,088) and Paris (1,191) sit far above the rest, at roughly one harsh event for every trip, with the gap between Berlin and Paris being 5.3 times, and between Berlin and Madrid 4.8 times.

What differs most from city to city is the kind of event. Harsh acceleration accounts for 79% of Paris events and 69% of Madrid events, while Berlin and London split more evenly between acceleration and braking. Amsterdam and Rome show the highest share of harsh cornering of any city (34% and 27%), although harsh braking is the largest event type in both (37% and 40%). An acceleration-heavy profile tends to respond to driver coaching and in-cab feedback, while a profile built on braking and cornering more often points to junction design and routing.

Safety and efficiency tend to move together. The four cities with the highest efficiency scores, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin and Rome, are the four with the fewest harsh events per trip, while Paris, London and Madrid, the three lowest-scoring cities, have the three highest rates. Two cities sit awkwardly within that pattern. Paris records the most harsh events per trip despite scoring higher than London and Madrid, and London's rate is less than half of Madrid's despite a score of 29.

Where events happen matters too. Amsterdam's three busiest areas hold 13.7% of the city's harsh events, the most concentrated pattern in the study, and all three of Dublin's busiest areas sit on a single road, the Naas Road (N7). In cities such as London, by contrast, events are spread widely across the network, with the busiest area holding just 0.6%. In Berlin, Madrid, Paris and Rome the busiest area holds between 1.7% and 2.6% of the city's events, so a handful of junctions and corridors in each city account for a noticeable share.

Berlin: the lowest rate in the study

Berlin records 225 harsh events per 1,000 trips, the lowest of the seven cities and roughly one event every four to five trips. Acceleration (45%) and braking (44%) are almost evenly matched, and cornering accounts for only 10%, which likely reflects the city's wide, straight boulevards. Its polycentric layout, with several centres rather than one dominant hub, spreads demand across the network, and the busiest areas, around Spandauer Damm in Charlottenburg, in Spandau and in Westend, each hold about 2% of events. Berlin's rate makes a useful baseline for what a well-functioning network can look like.

Dublin: one corridor stands out

Dublin records 315 events per 1,000 trips, the second-lowest rate, and its safety picture centres on one road. The Naas Road (N7) corridor through Walkinstown and Drimnagh holds all three of the city's busiest areas (2.3%, 1.9% and 1.4% of Dublin's harsh events), and in the worst of them 71% of events are harsh cornering. Across the rest of the city, acceleration leads (49% of events against 32% for braking), so the N7 stands apart. The roundabouts, tight ramps and merge points along the route likely explain it, and routing that avoids that stretch at peak times is likely to reduce exposure without any change to the road itself.

Amsterdam: concentrated at a single interchange

Amsterdam records 356 events per 1,000 trips and has the most balanced profile in the study, with 29% acceleration, 37% braking and 34% cornering. The cornering share is the highest of any city and fits a canal-grid layout of tight turns and narrow bridges. Amsterdam is also home to the most concentrated hotspot in the study: three areas on the A4 approach to Schiphol airport hold 13.7% of the city's harsh events, and the busiest alone holds 6.3%, more than double the top area in any other city. Cornering makes up between 46% and 78% of events in each of those areas, which points to the demanding geometry of the interchange. Planning routes around that stretch could have an outsized effect on a fleet's results in the city.

Rome: tight streets, steady flow

Rome records 393 events per 1,000 trips and ranks fourth on efficiency, despite the worst congestion score in the study. Braking is the largest category at 40%, followed by acceleration (33%) and cornering (27%), the second-highest cornering share after Amsterdam, which likely reflects the narrow, irregular streets of the historic centre. Rome's star-shaped road network spreads demand across several radial corridors, and its busiest areas are the EUR business district (2.6% and 0.9% of events) and the A1/A24 interchange east of Porta Maggiore (0.7%). The rate sits below London's, which suggests that slow but continuous traffic can be safer than stop-start conditions.

London: lower than its congestion would suggest

London records 462 events per 1,000 trips, less than half of Madrid's and about two-fifths of Paris's, even though it ranks sixth of seven on efficiency with a score of 29. Acceleration (45.5%) and braking (38.7%) are close to evenly matched, with cornering at 15.8%. Events are also spread unusually thinly. The busiest area, around Kennington, accounts for just 0.6% of events, followed by Waterloo and Lambeth (0.5%) and central Westminster (0.5%), so there is no single location to fix. In absolute terms London recorded the second-highest number of harsh events of the seven cities over 2025, at 31.4 million behind Madrid's 32.1 million. The low rate per trip may reflect congestion charging, signal policy, stricter enforcement and calmer driving patterns.

Madrid: the second-highest rate, led by harsh acceleration

Madrid records 1,088 events per 1,000 trips, the second-highest rate, and its profile is led by acceleration at 69% of events, against 19% for braking and 12% for cornering. Its busiest areas run along the Paseo del Prado, the Paseo de la Castellana and the M-30 inner ring, and the top three are almost tied in intensity (1.7%, 1.7% and 1.6% of events), which points to a network under pressure throughout rather than a single chokepoint. Events peak at 11:00, and Madrid still logs 886,000 of them at 05:00, its quietest hour. It is also the lowest-ranked city on efficiency, with a score of 25, and with limited off-peak windows, fleets there have little room to schedule around the pressure.

Paris: the highest rate in the study

Paris records 1,191 events per 1,000 trips, the highest of the seven cities and 5.3 times Berlin's rate. Harsh acceleration accounts for 79% of events, with braking at 15% and cornering at just 6.5%, the most acceleration-heavy profile in the study. That may point to a habit of rapid take-off from a standstill, which makes driver coaching a sensible first step for fleets operating there. The busiest area sits in the 18th arrondissement near the Porte de la Chapelle interchange (1.8% of events), with further clusters around the inner Périphérique and on the west side towards La Défense. Events also peak later in Paris than in any other city, at 19:00. Paris ranks fifth on efficiency (score 37), so its safety result is weaker than its efficiency score alone would predict.

Reading the Numbers by City

The comparison between cities has a practical use for fleet managers. A driver who logs 1,000 harsh events per 1,000 trips is close to the city average in Madrid and well above it in Berlin, where the average is 225. Targets for drivers and fleets are more useful when they are set against the city a vehicle operates in, rather than one figure for every market.

Edward Kulperger, Senior Vice President, EMEA at Geotab, said: "A harsh event rate only means something when you know which city the driver is working in. The same number can be an average day in Madrid and a warning sign in Berlin. Where the pattern is sudden acceleration, coaching and in-cab feedback can make a real difference. Where it is sharp cornering at a particular junction, a change of route will often do more. Fleets that can see which of the two they are dealing with are in a much better position to act. That is what data and benchmarking make possible: they turn a city-level pattern into something a fleet can act on. Video telematics can also add the context behind an individual event, so a coaching conversation can start from what actually happened on the road."

Read the full European Urban Freight Efficiency Index here. 

^Methodology

^{The European Urban Freight Efficiency Index scores each city on a scale of 0 to 100, based on two dimensions evaluated separately for passenger vehicles and trucks, then combined using a 60/40 weighting (passenger/truck). The first dimension, how traffic flows, accounts for 75% of each vehicle score and covers congestion burden, uncongested windows and travel time variability. The second, what congestion costs, accounts for the remaining 25% and measures mid-trip vehicle idling.}

^{Safety findings are reported separately from the index score. They use GPS-derived harsh acceleration, harsh braking and harsh cornering events, expressed per 1,000 trips so that cities of different size can be compared. Hotspot figures show the share of a city's harsh events that fall within each small grid area (geohash cell). Events are inferred from GPS position data rather than accelerometer readings, so they may undercount on short road segments and overcount on curved roads, and are intended for relative comparison between cities, not as a count of collisions or incidents. All figures are based on full-year 2025 data (January to December) from Geotab's connected vehicle platform across Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Rome, Paris, London and Madrid, and represent a sample of connected vehicles, not a census.}