Arocs Grounder in Maasvlakte 2

Vehicle & Technology

Arocs Grounder.

The Arocs is the new force in Construction. It is now also available as Arocs Grounder for extremely tough off-road operations –
with a variety of weight options and axle configurations.


The Arocs Grounder is the specialist when the going gets really tough. Its backbone is the extremely stable frame made of cold formed, highly resilient fine-grained steel with side members that are nine millimetres thick. Robust multi-leaf parabolic springs with hard springing characteristics on the front and rear axles ensure a particularly high level of stability. Specially matched shock absorbers and stabilisers are fitted at the rear – for additional robustness and stable driving even when the strain on the vehicle is one-sided. The axles of the Arocs Grounder are also highly resilient: the proven axle with an axle load of up to nine tonnes and high ground clearance is fitted at the front; hub reduction axles with an axle load of up to 16 tonnes, also with high ground clearance, are available at the rear. The vehicle is equipped with Mercedes PowerShift with the ‘offroad’ driving mode for work on tough terrain. When working on-road the ‘standard’ driving mode with EcoRoll ensures fuel efficiency.


Three questions for Arocs Grounder customer Teunis Kraaijeveld.

What kind of company is Kraaijeveld’s Aannemingsbedrijf?

Kraaijeveld: We’re a family-owned business. My father, my uncle and my grandfather and his brother made the successful company what it is. I’m in the third generation and am being familiarised with managerial responsibility. Today, we operate in Rotterdam in canal, road, dyke and port construction fields. We try to offer as many services as we can ourselves. That’s why we operate our own ships and our own vehicle fleet and machinery and hold the necessary licences, for example, to transport contaminated soil or to use recycled wood in accordance with the FSC standard.

Why did you choose the Arocs Grounder?

Kraaijeveld: We do a lot of work in polders, large areas that have been created by reclaiming land and building embankments. Most of these areas are below sea level. The groundwater table in the polders is extremely high. When building and excavation work is carried out here, the upward pressure of the groundwater very quickly turns the surface into a muddy and sludgy terrain. So we need trucks that are able to transport loads to their destination reliably and under difficult conditions. The Arocs Grounder brings along the right mixture of power, robustness and efficiency. Our contract work in Rotterdam’s port extension area Maasvlakte 2 is another reason for buying the Arocs Grounder. To protect the environment, the use of Euro V trucks is to be banned there from 2016. As a Euro VI pioneer we are clearly setting an example here.

What has driver feedback to the Arocs Grounder been like so far?

Kraaijeveld: They say it’s a sturdy construction vehicle which looks good from the outside and inside and is extremely comfortable to drive off-road because of the Mercedes PowerShift automated transmission.


Infrastructure for future growth: For the Maasvlakte 2 project 2000 hectares of land were reclaimed from the North Sea but there is still a lot of work to be done despite the opening of the first quay.

No comments yet