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Today we are at Kings Cross Concrete Plant in the centre of London,

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operating about 100 to 150 trucks a day out of there. A very busy plant for us.

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Our drivers start early in the morning.

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They arrive, do their checks, get out on the road as quick as possible, and out into the busy traffic in London.

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And it’s a very difficult, challenging environment that they work in.

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My name is Paul Banu, I am an owner-driver, working exclusively for Tarmac.

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First time when I drove it, it was really eye-opening.

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Because you can see how much they improved the vision towards the congestion and the busy streets that we have in London.

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The high-visibility cab is a great aid for the driver and a real key feature.

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Enabling them to get eye-contact with pedestrians and vulnerable road users at all times.

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At the stop light you don’t need to go up and check if someone is there, like on the other trucks.

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Here you have a see-through door which helps you see 100 % if someone is there or not.

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The Econic has great off-road and on-road capabilities, which gives us great flexibility, when we are delivering to our customers.

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If you want to get to the delivery site, you can lift the cab off and drive it off-road.

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And after you finish you can just lower it down on driving position.

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And you have the normal visibility that is very good.

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So one of the key features that is important to us is the low-entry cabin.

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The access is really good for the drivers.

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The fact that they can walk through the cab and get out on both sides - sometimes in a tight environment - is a real benefit.

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The camera systems for the Econic are useful, because it helps you when you reverse or when you turn left or right.

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Another key feature of the Mercedes-Benz Econic is the Active Brake Assist,

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which in a dynamic environment of London - where they are operating - is really useful as a driver aid.

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I can say it’s enjoyable to drive the Econic.

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It’s less stressful. And at the end of the day you don’t really realize that you had a hard day.

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Over the coming years the key challenges for us in the industry will be the Direct Vision Standards

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as it expands across the country, and the clean air challenges across the cities.

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CLOCS is a really important industry-led standard.

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The Econic helps us meet the standards with it’s high standard of cameras, senses and all-round vision.

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We have been working with S & B for over twelve months now.

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And we got a really strong relationship and some great support from them.

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Tarmac currently has twenty Mercedes-Benz Econics on the fleet.

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And we are looking to expand that in the next twelve months.

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Some workers now started to specify the Econic as a vehicle that they want us to deliver on,

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because they recognized the safety benefits that it brings.