European Freight Efficiency Index: The Cost of Standing Still

A new European Freight Efficiency Index from Geotab benchmarks how efficiently commercial vehicles move through seven major European capitals: Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Rome, Paris, London and Madrid. Based on full-year 2025 data from Geotab’s connected vehicles, the report scores each city across two dimensions — how well traffic flows, and the operational waste that congestion creates. The findings reveal a 144% efficiency gap between Europe’s best and worst performing cities.

Report at-a-glance:

• The ranking: Berlin leads the Index with a score of 61, followed by Amsterdam (59), Dublin (49), Rome (48), Paris (37), London (29) and Madrid (25). A 144% efficiency gap separates the best and worst performing cities.
• The cost of standing still: Connected vehicles in this study burned an estimated 1.58 million litres of fuel while stationary in 2025 — approximately €2.6 million in idle waste over twelve months at that year’s European average fuel prices.
• Congestion is the differentiator: Performance differences between cities are driven overwhelmingly by how well road networks manage congestion — not by vehicle behaviour. The gap between Berlin and Madrid on traffic flow performance is 3.8x.
• Operational discipline pays: In five of seven cities, truck fleets outperform passenger vehicle fleets — not because of different technology, but because of structured routing, scheduled delivery windows and freight-specific infrastructure. The data shows what operational discipline achieves at scale.