Category Archives: Rail/Road

QuickShift has launched its same-day delivery service QS-Rapid in Delhi-NCR. With this, the company will cater to the consumers’ growing needs by ensuring all deliveries across the Delhi-NCR region are done within the same day. The company that has set a target of providing unique supply chain solutions for large and small enterprises for product deliveries to happen on time, has launched this service to cater to the online orders received for D2C brands on its system to be delivered on the same day to its customers. Also, with the launch of same-day delivery in Delhi-NCR, Quickshift RAPID plans to further consolidate every brand’s ‘customer first’ positioning. “Delhi is the national hub of business with a nine times bigger market. Its robust connectivity across NCR regions and neighbouring states, catering to growing urban demands makes it a prime location for Quickshift to launch the same-day delivery service. The reality is that consumers want quick, easy, and accessible products straight to their door. Same-day delivery is a game-changer because it combines the immediate product availability of brick and mortar retail with the convenience of ordering from home. The option of having same-day shipping reduces cart abandonment by close to 25%. It encourages consumers to shop more online. While it has its own challenges, we feel that few cities in India today provide the dynamism to make it work,” said Anshul Goenka, Founder, QuickShift.

WebXpress has identified a few key trends in the logistics sector which will be trendsetter in 2022. Covid-19 has shaken the roots of the well-oiled world of Logistics. Before Covid-19, most companies assumed seamless movements, stable freight rates, unlimited capacity, and minimum buffer. But an even bigger disruption is on the way as major economies enforce climate commitments and consumers force companies to comply with them. Key tech trend that would drive logistics industry in managing climate goals: * Climate Measurement / Monitoring Tools * Localized Climate Data * Optimum EV Asset Utilization Tools * Carbon Trading Apurva Mankad, CEO and Founder, WebXpress adds, “World is entering a new phase of energy challenges. There will be a gap between cutting fossil fuel dependence while ramping up green energy sources. Logistics is one of the biggest emitter and its also technically easier to solve the issue of excess emission when compared to cement production. All you need to do is convert all vehicles to EV and run all warehouse on Solar energy. Of course, the reality will be far more complex and it will vary across nations. Companies need to offset emissions in one part of the supply chain with initiatives in distant locations. Here, technology will play a crucial role to track every movement, every km and measure its impact. The coming decade belongs to Global Green Tech.”

RAAHO, an On-Demand intercity trucking marketplace, has raised INR 12.5 crore in Pre-series A round of funding led by new investors IPV , Nitish Mittersain (Founder – Nazara) and participated by its existing investors Roots Ventures, Venkatesh Vijayraghavan (Group CEO, Board Member, Cavinkare) , Miten Sampat from CRED and others. The asset-light, capital-efficient company plans to utilize the fresh funds to grow nationally and make the whole product “100% On-Demand”. The $100bn Trucking industry in India is unorganised, largely offline and is plagued with massive deadhead and wastage (wherein a truck drives empty for a load). It’s estimated that 25% of total travel by a truck is empty which leads to huge loss for the trucker, loss for the economy and also a huge environmental challenge.

Ecom Express Limited announced the launch of its first all-women Delivery Center in Delhi. The all-women Delivery Center is an initiative towards empowering women and providing them financial independence while strengthening the company’s Diversity and Inclusion agenda. Women force have already been inducted in the Delivery Center and it will be the first time in the company that a 10-member team, exclusively comprising women from the ranks of Delivery Center Head to Delivery Associates, will be engaged independently in all operational activities. Inaugurating the all-women delivery center, Manju Dhawan, Co-founder, Ecom Express Limited, said, “The launch of our all-women delivery center is a conscious agenda and an extension of our continued effort to supporting women with opportunities that empower them to grow and economically elevate them. Our aim is to create more and more opportunities for female team members across roles, including front-line delivery role as we remain steadfast in our approach to support them and their career progression.”

After the conclusion of the COP 26 conference in Glasgow, DB Schenker and Volta Trucks, a leading and disruptive full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services provider, have confirmed an intensive partnership and pre-order of nearly 1,500 full-electric Volta Zero vehicles – the most significant order for large zero-emission trucks in Europe to date. Cyrille Bonjean, Executive VP, Land Transport at DB Schenker, Europe, said, “We have many challenges to overcome on the road to carbon neutrality. The large-scale partnership with Volta Trucks allows us to significantly increase the pace of electrification of our fleet and invest in greener transport solutions, brings us closer again to our goal of carbon neutral logistics.” Essa Al-Saleh, CEO, Volta Trucks, confirmed the agreement with DB Schenker, “I am delighted to welcome DB Schenker as a Volta Trucks customer. Working with DB Schenker on Europe’s largest full-electric truck order demonstrates the confidence that major freight distributors have in our ability to deliver a world-class zero-emission vehicle on time and to the highest possible quality.”

To become carbon emission-free, Zypp Electric-an EV logistics tech delivery start-up claims to build India’s 1st EV D2C business. “We are extremely proud to be the first EV D2C Business in India. Our goal is to achieve 100% electrification in last-mile logistics and to assist businesses from many sectors in becoming emission-free,” said Akash Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO of Zypp Electric. Zypp electric caters to a wide range of enterprises, including e-commerce companies, e-grocery, Kirana stores, and restaurants, and handles end-to-end last-mile deliveries – from stores to customers’ homes – with various differentiated tech-enabled custom solutions, including the use of e-vehicles, service timing fixes, IoT-enabled battery swapping infrastructure, etc. The start-up at present has a fleet of 2000+ electric scooters and provides 500k deliveries each month. Zypp Electric made its debut in India with its first B2B heavy electric scooter, the ‘Zypp Cargo,’ in July 2021. This heavy-duty scooter, designed for last-mile logistics is capable of carrying up to 250 kg and has a 40 Ah battery and can go 120 kilometers in one charge. It can accommodate multiple battery systems and have swappable batteries.

Along with the launch of 21 new commercial vehicles, Indian multinational Tata Motors also announced its plans to launch Electric Small Commercial Vehicles (SCVs) for the Indian ecosystem. The EVs are being developed in synergy with a few e-commerce organisations as Tata targets last-mile transportation. Though an exact timeline has not been revealed, Tata Motors Executive Director Girish Wagh said it was going to be ‘soon’. EVs have a substantial advantage over conventional vehicles in reference to the cost of operating as fuel prices continue to surge by the day. Moreover, demand for EVs in the e-commerce and logistics sectors have increased multi-fold as organisations strive to achieve net-zero emissions as a part of sustainable supply chains. Girish Wagh cited the advantage of operating cost, shrinking price gap between EVs and conventional vehicles and ballooning demand of EVs for last-mile transportation as the grounds for electrification along the supply chain.

GEODIS has expanded its road network in Southeast Asia to Vietnam; another step towards its ambition to develop a scheduled road service connecting Singapore to China. GEODIS’ own fleet of vehicles and expanded network of partners enables full and partial loads to be carried by road along the Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand axis, and now Vietnam. The addition of the service to Vietnam will serve businesses driving the manufacturing boom in that country over recent years, helping the region become a vital supply chain node for many high-tech, retail, and FMCG businesses. Launched in November 2019, the Road Transport service of GEODIS in Southeast Asia was created to meet the needs of companies looking for a day-definite road transportation solution for their cargo, in the range of 30 to 1000 kilos per shipment. The expanded road network for Full Truck Load (FTL) and Less than Truck Load (LTL) service provide freight management from first to last mile and offers additional options for existing GEODIS customers, in addition to air and ocean transport modes. The door-to-door road option has the advantage of loading space flexibility, with benefits of lower rates than air freight, shorter transit times than ocean freight, and on-the-ground expertise for customs clearance.

COGOS has ramped up its fleet by more than 1000 vehicles to meet the festive demand. This new addition of fleet will address the surge in demand during the festive season which is expected to be high till the end of Q3, FY 2021- 22 According to reports, this festive season has seen a 100% spike in demand from Tier 2 & Tier 3 markets. With the additional fleet, COGOS also expands to 30 new towns and improves reach. COGOS has seen a huge hike in demand for E-Commerce and FMCG Retail. However, this year segments like pantry products, beverage and pharma have also seen an uptick. There is an increase in demand observed for Mini Trucks 1 tonne & 2 tonne and medium trucks above 4 tonne. During this season, driver fleets are ensured higher earnings. Every driver on the COGOS platform enjoys the season perks, and payouts are increased by 15% during the festive peak. In the foreseeable future, COGOS plans to continue to work with the newly added driver fleet for the quarter. Prasad Sreeram, Co – founder & CEO, COGOS said, “This festive season we are observing about a 100 % increase in demand from last year. With the COVID subsiding, consumers are willing to spend. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities have witnessed good demand which has led to the spike in demand for inter and intra-city logistic services. We have massively improved driver onboarding making it easier, simpler, faster and thorough at the same time to ensure a faster response in the festive season.”

Emphasising on the need of the multi modal trasnportation in order to be more efficient,Yuvraj Sharma, Cluster Head, Sales and Marketing, India, Sri Lanka and Maldives, Kuhene+Nagel, said, “Today’s enviornment does not just demand to get into a multi modal option for servicing our customer but, it is the need since we have capacity issues, congestions happening, time definite deliveries. All of this require multi modal as a cost effective and time efficient mode of moving goods from one place to another. From logistics performance index point of view, India is today ranked at 44. Multi modal is definitely one way that can not only help in avoiding the challenges we face in today’s time we are working in and improve from the transit point perspective also. And see India becoming a leader not only in the export supply chain but also in the import supply chain.”