Team-BHP - Rivigo: Technology helping the truck industry
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Came across an interesting article on Rivigo, a startup that is bringing in a "relay-system" in the trucking industry.

Pretty interesting concept:
- keeps the drivers local, within a certain perimeter; so, they get to go home each night/much sooner than the current setup
- journeys would be quicker since the truck can always be on the move
- eventually, this will bring down the cost and hopefully, lead to a better lifestyle for the truck drivers

Quote:

It’s no surprise then that the new-age logistics companies are trying to humanise a trucker’s job. And the change at Rivigo, started by IIT Kanpur alumnus Deepak Garg in 2014, starts with changing the driver’s job title to ‘Pilot’.
Quote:

The company has also devised a relay system — a new driver takes over at a pit stop located every few hundred kilometres — for its 4,000 trucks. For example, on the 1,370-km Delhi-Mumbai stretch, pit stops have been set up every 250km. A driver makes the four to five-hour journey from one pit stop to the next. Another driver takes over the truck, while the first one drives back to the starting point in another truck after a mandatory rest period. Rivigo claims it has cut down the Delhi-Mumbai travel time from 80-100 hours to 30-32 hours as the truck is constantly on the move. Sensors and telematics on its trucks have also reduced fuel pilferage and accidents.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/69167153.cms

Financial details of Rivigo:
https://www.livemint.com/companies/s...255145507.html

- FY18 revenues of Rs. 721 crores (up 77%) and net loss of Rs. 245 crores
- Currently valued at $920 million.
- Old traditional trucking company like Transport Corporation of India (TCI) has a valuation of just $300 million. They clocked Rs. 2,500 cr revenues and Rs. 100 cr profit.
- Rivigo planning to raise another $400 million in debt and equity
- Warburg Pincus (early investor in Airtel) and SAIF partners (early investor in MakeMyTrip, JustDial etc) are investors in Rivigo
- Blackbuck.com is in similar space too.

This one will not only be efficient but also take care of the state of truckers who till now were always ignored or cared less.

The major advantage of the relay system apart from comparatively short sprints for the drivers. However, as a regular road user on our highways, the worst that I fear is the quality of drivers who will drive these trucks now that we are referring to relay system and drivers mostly belonging to localities/regions within.

There is no need to get into a deep study but the fact remains that short haul truckers are always ruffians on the highways while the long haul drivers are the best when it comes to road manners and exercising patience. Last thing I would want to see if employing a Sand and a Concrete mixer "Pilot" to drive a loaded truck for 250 Km which will be cakewalk for him but a huge risk to many others on road.

Regarding this: Sensors and telematics on its trucks have also reduced fuel pilferage and accidents. A popular feelt operator in Karnataka to whom a friend is related has shown me how they have a fully functional 24X7 command center that monitors movements of trucks and buses along with scenarios of Political unrest and riots, fuel price fluctuations etc.

Based on regular inputs that is gathered, they help drivers of the trucks and buses perform certain actions to mitigate this. For instance, during the Patidar agitation in Gujarat when there were riots in Surat, this command center diverted their entire fleet through a safe passage asking drivers to exit out of the state and take alternate routes to avoid damage to their vehicles and passengers.

Even anticipation of a fuel price hike by a good margin has triggered them to send broadcast messages/calls asking all their drivers to tank up. For someone who has a fleet of at least 4000 vehicles on road at any given time, the savings made from this alone is HUGE!!

On Similar note, 2 years before while crossing Mumbai, I noticed too many trucks with a blue sticker behind (https://www.truckbhada.com) and I wondered what it was till I opened the site it was absolutely comprehensive and exhaustive - B2B and B2C. Find Truck load, Find Driver, Calculate Toll, Find Live loads in each sector etc. Check it out some time and you will love the stats here too.

In a nutshell, I am glad to see trucking industry taking small little steps towards the right direction. It is the need of the hour. However, in the name of start-ups, there are other important things that we forget apart from efficiency, especially since this is to do with the trucking industry where people connect, collaboration, teamwork play very important role.

Adding more tech to the trucking industry, one budding startup https://drivebuddyai.com/ has come up with AI based solution for tracking vehicles. They mostly have fleet owners as the target customer and provide collision warnings, monitoring risky lane changes, evaluating driver performance among other features.

Hoping with such tech integration along with "rested" truck drivers on road, highways become safer even with average speeds increasing every year.

Have read about Rivigo on the forum, but am surprised there was no dedicated thread yet. Thanks for sharing! The company is a game-changer.

Related threads (where Rivigo has been discussed):

Plight of Indian Truckers

Shortage of Truck Drivers

While the relay system is good for the driver, unless we improve the trucks themselves, ergonomics, power and comfort and the roads, these are just bandaid solutions to the larger issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by libranof1987 (Post 4584932)
- keeps the drivers local, within a certain perimeter; so, they get to go home each night/much sooner than the current setup

Actually, a very old concept. When I was working UPS (United Percel service) in the mid 90s, I found out that UPS drivers never drive 4 hours away from their home branch. This enabled them to come back their local office within 8 hours of any trip. Entire nationwide hub-n-spoke setup of UPS was built on this concept. It kept all the drivers happy, and their families happy. It was a case study in many Operational Research (OR) courses.

UPS had a very strong math based R&D unit. Did you know UPS invented MaxiCode much before QR code was invented? I had colleagues who worked on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by extreme_torque (Post 4585388)
While the relay system is good for the driver, unless we improve the trucks themselves, ergonomics, power and comfort and the roads, these are just bandaid solutions to the larger issue.

When the value for the human behind the wheel increases, we could expect more drivers coming in. Right now safety or comfort if not of any importance, the driver gets just a fan and a hard seat and a bench to sleep on. Manufacturers are focusing on the owners and advertising products which doesnt give a driver a nice place to even rest.

In the relay system, when a driver drives from Point a - point b, doesnt he have to get back to point a somehow? Will he get a guarenteed trip back to homebase?

Travelled in the Assam - Arunachal route recently and saw an enormous number of trucks parked at the local dhabas. None of the places looked either clean or hygenic for us to stop and have a bite. Thats what the drivers deal with on a daily basis.

Maddy

Rivigo is going on a diet - Source & Full Article

Quote:

Surface transport company Rivigo has laid off 70-100 employees over the last few months, mainly in its freight marketplace team, multiple people aware of the matter said.

The Gurugram-based company, backed by Warburg Pincus and SAIF Partners, also withdrew around 50 offers from 10 premier campuses, including National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Indian School of Business, Indian Institute of Technology, and Indian Institute of Management, before the joining dates, documents sourced by ET indicate.

This comes at a time when Rivigo has been under pressure from investors to cut costs, move away from an asset-heavy business, and improve its unit economics across all business verticals.


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