[bugatti]

Originally Posted by turbospooler

So I had given some thought to this idea 3 years back when I was with Tata Motors.
The biggest reason why shortage is there because families don't allow their children in the trucking line as they will be away from home and also the marriage prospects drop when a person is not going to be around
To make things easier, I had thought that if a relay system is developed, the "baton" (truck) should be passed at the checkpoints where the state boundary ends. That way, a local driver will drive through the state and he knows the road conditions, the language (needed to navigate, talk to policemen etc).
That way the driver can always reach home.
In the case of large states, 2 baton passes should be organised.
Hope these thoughts are also put in this business model and it succeeds.

This is exactly what Rivigo is doing.

Many startups are tackling the logistics sector as it presents some interesting challenges. There are some 4 major funded logistics companies that are looking to make their mark.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

There is a huge opportunity here, but has its own share of issues. The key problem is that of who will pay the fees vs retention of drivers. One of my friends had explored the idea of setting up a training school for drivers. On the face of it, it seems attractive - large pool of unskilled talent who want to take training, CV manufacturers are willing to assist financially, large demand for trained drivers. The only fly in the ointment is that a lot of these truck drivers, after training, simply disappear to escape from their liability to the institute or whoever put up the money to train them, and because of this problem, people are also unwilling to invest in training them. Unlike white collar workers, bond enforcement for blue collar workers is easier said than done.

If someone can solve this problem, they have a viable business plan in their hands

with aadhar becoming ubiquitous, this problem seems to have solved itself, assuming aadhar works (doubt it) let's see!

[shankar.balan]

A relay system may work, yes. Looks an interesting idea.
If only one big company would get into the Truck business and transform it, by giving drivers a better deal, better trucks to drive, facilities etc, it will be a start.
But it is true - the earlier post here, which says that in general we don't believe that our service people or drivers or others, deserve comfort. Thats an overall lousy attitude that springs up with this "sense of entitlement" that most people seem to have.

Look at say the UK or Australia - there are Giant Trucking Companies there - professionally run and staffed with professionals. Eddie Stobart in the UK. LinFox in Australia.
Fantastic Trucking and Logistics services!

It is also true that the Indian check post system and rank corruption at every possible level, spoils the opportunity. And we've been discussing for 22 years how the lack of cold chain here in India, contributes crazily to wastage and "dump" stocks of perishable goods, especially food.

[Ashley2]

GST implementation is going to bring sea of changes in goods transportation.

State-border check posts, which currently ensuring material scrutiny and location-based tax compliance, often stretch the transit time in the process. These unproductive transit hours, as well as regulatory hurdles, delay overall transit time of a truck. Presently due to various state borders, turnaround time between Chennai and Mumbai is anywhere between 72 hrs to 96 hrs. Majority of the time is spent in clearing papers in state borders and truckers easily spend nearly 40% to 50% of their travel time as idle time in check posts. Thus, lower interstate compliance and reduced paperwork is expected to result into faster turnaround time for trucks resulting quicker delivery of goods. This will also ensure road transportation nimble and agile and will be compete with rail transport head on. Because railways are currently exempted from interstate check posts as trains always travel between fixed destinations. So there is minimal impact on the railways.

Link - here - www.cvnews.in

[parambyte]

Interesting thread.

I think Indian trucks are terrible and I don't blame drivers. No air conditioning, extremely low power (have you seen truck engines scream for mercy even at low gradient climbs), terrible steering and no automatic... poor salaries... Bad highway conditions (food, stay, safety etc).

As a culture we want all for ourselves. We have people who make fat salaries but will negotiate hard with the vegetable vendor over 20 rupees. Truck company owners drive rolls royces and buy quintuple holiday homes but claim there is no money to increase wages. Trucking is one of the highest paying jobs in America which you can get without a college degree. The housing society A friend lives in Mumbai wants expensive granite and marble in the elevator lobby but fights tooth and nail with security staff over a small salary hike. The same guards who are supposed to protect crores and crores worth of cars.

A businessman friend once that that the only thing cheap about doing business in india is wages.

Interestingly I was speaking to an oldie who said in the early days of automobiles, ball bearings and hydraulics weren't either invented or readily available. So vehicle steering weas very very heavy and tiring. It needed strong people to be able to do that. So the first round of drivers were Sikhs and Pathans, heavily built men who could take this back breaking work. In the evenings, they would lie at the Ganges (Hooghly) ghats in Kolkata and get their acheing muscles massaged. Even today, there is a culture of massages on the Hooghly ghats.

(also I think the fact that the partition made a lot of these agrarian people lose their lands might have pushed them into the next available job : trucking?)

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by parambyte

I think Indian trucks are terrible and I don't blame drivers. No air conditioning, extremely low power (have you seen truck engines scream for mercy even at low gradient climbs), terrible steering and no automatic...

While acknowledging the fact that the trucks (and buses) made for India are low on power and torque, I fear that you are probably decades behind the developments that have happened in the Commercial Vehicles sector in India. Since almost everything is covered in the CV section, I am merely listing down some of the standard features available at this time:
1. Power steering (difficult to get drivers of (older) trucks without power steering, and PS is mandated by law)
2. Dual circuit air brakes
3. ABS, mandated by law (in effect for vehicles carrying hazardous materials and tractor-trailers (Semi, pronounced as Se-m-a-yi the American way) for many years)
4. Synchro-mesh gearboxes, standard across the range and application categories - it's as easy or as difficult as using a "stick-shift" in a car

Some optional features offered by at least some if not all manufacturers:
1. AC cabins - there are plans to bring in legislation to make this mandatory
2. Automated Manual Transmissions - available in buses for many years, introduced in ICVs in the BOSS range by Ashok Leyland 3 years ago
3. Indigenously developed powertrain options that can meet the most stringent emission norms in the EU.

Nothing in our country has evolved overnight or only in the recent past, but things were evolving and will keep changing for the better. Some are driven by demand, some are pushed by advances in technology. Then there are some changes mandated through legislation, which, in many cases could be driven by lobbying.

[parambyte]

@silversteed true with all that. But the vast majority of trucks we see on the roads are the old ones. I still see some Tata 1210SE from my childhood days decades back. We have had one of the largest markets for everything (considering the scale of the population) but corporate innovation is so slow...s

[VivOverland]

Post GST, the booths at the borders have disappeared like the British from India. We actually have 1 administrative region across the country for the first time ever. Even pre-Independence our principalities and kingdoms had their own separate rules which were adapted by whoever happened to take charge at the time.

Ever wondered why our trucks were so small and slow? I used to hate traveling on the NH-4 stretch between Satara and Kagal (after Kolhapur, on the KA border). Weaving a small car through the line of trucks creeping along that 1 lane disaster was like Mowgli trying to get ahead of the elephant parade. This has certainly reduced once the GQ was launched, though the lines remain. The challenge in India was that warehousing followed the tax structure, which differed between states. So most manufacturers had separate godowns in each state, 1 for the production stock and 1 for the customer facing stock. No wonder we had these small trucks - it was too expensive to pay a new tax at each border crossing. Long haul vehicles were limited to transporting high value or fragile goods where cost was not the issue, but productivity was prime focus.

Well, we now have the highways, and we also have a unified tax code. I won't get into the tax rates, that's like debating whether my wife or my mother cooks better - it's a long process, and everyone ends up losing. Are the CV manufacturers ready for it? You bet they are!

Volvo's plans

A great article covering megatrends

Tata Motors new SIGNA range of long haul trucks

I believe we are heading towards the age of mega trucks here in India. We can already see such locally made monsters on our roads. Power output is ridiculous, usually around 180 PS!


The opportunity lies in moving from this


To this


And one day, even this!


While I doubt we will see Aussie style road trains here, they could well be used in mining operations in more remote areas, as the limiting factor is not road surface or number of lanes; rather density of traffic.

Some great times ahead for the trucking industry, both in terms of wages and quality of work for truckers, but driving higher productivity and quality overall.