Category Archives: Rail/Road

Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari while addressing the National Conference on Investment Opportunities in Highways, Transport and Logistics invited investors and urged them to take advantage of the diverse opportunities spanning asset classes in the infrastructure sector, including highways, multimodal logistics parks, wayside amenities, ropeways, and warehousing zones. At the conference, Gadkari said, “The internal rate of return in the road sector is very high and, hence, there is no need to worry about economic viability.” He informed that the government has addressed the early delays due to land acquisition, and now, projects are not awarded before 90% of land acquisition is complete and environment clearances are obtained. Highlighting the benefits of projects under the Bharatmala program Gadkari said, “Travel time from Mumbai to Delhi, via road, will go down from 48 to 12 hours in one year; road and multimodal infrastructure projects will reduce logistics costs and boost manufacturing, increase exports and help the economy grow.”

In its latest joint report with Indospace titled ‘Electric Mobility in Full Gear’, Colliers estimates that the Electric Vehicles (EVs) segment in India is likely to witness investments of USD12.6 billion or INR94,000 crore across the automotive value chain, over the next five years. The investments are likely to benefit the Indian real estate sector in the form of setting up new or augmenting manufacturing units, industrial parks, and clusters with focus on last mile delivery by E-commerce firms and 3PL companies, government push for electrification of public transport, tax benefits and incentives for first time buyers amongst others. Tamil Nadu is the frontrunner accounting for about 34% share in total planned investments for EV, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Haryana with a share of 12% and 9% respectively. Currently, 15 Indian States have either approved or notified EV policies, with 6 more states in the draft stage. States like Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Meghalaya are focusing on demand incentives, whereas southern states and Uttar Pradesh are focusing on manufacturer-based incentives. States like Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat having strong demand side incentives should have provisions to set up industrial parks/clusters for EV or manufacturing of ancillary components with plug-and-play.

APM Terminals, Pipavav in collaboration with Pipavav Railway Corporation Limited (PRCL), is now going offer double stack rail service to Jodhpur via Sanand on a hub & spoke model, which will further provide access to other ICDs in India. The service is managed by PRCL, the joint venture between Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd. and Indian Railways, the first such service by PRCL. Customer centricity is at the core of all our initiatives. The rail connection to Jodhpur via Sanand on hub and spoke model will give an edge to our customers in connecting to their markets/ICDs quickly. We extend all our support to the PRCL to make this connection big success.” Jakob Friis Sorenson, APM Terminals Pipavav The hub & spoke arrangement via Sanand will ensure timely evacuation from the port in lesser dwell time there by swift movement of the cargoe for the customers. The initiative is likely to help the trade to connect with their markets quickly and competitively.

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.