Logistics firms try to make ride smoother for drivers

Logistics companies have started designing systems to ensure that their drivers are well rested even as the vehicles keep moving.

Logistics start-up GoBOLT, for instance, has detached the truck and driver through a double driver and driver relay system.

“Drivers are the most important part of the entire ecosystem. We take care of their health and hygiene aspects. Most of our trucks work on two models for covering long distances on a faster basis — a double driver model and a relay driver model,” Sumit Sharma, co-founder of GoBOLT, told BusinessLine .

The company follows a mix of asset ownership model, wherein it moves about 40-50 per cent of cargo through its own trucks, and hires trucks for the remaining cargo.

The double driver model, though not entirely new, came into the picture when road transport began to gain ground. Usually, a driver drives 12 hours a day at an average speed of 45 km. So, the 1,500-km Delhi-Mumbai route is covered in three-four days.

“Now we are looking to cover Delhi-Mumbai in 24-26 hours,” Sharma said. GoBOLT has ensured this by detaching the driver and truck as a single entity, a move that ensures that trucks run for longer durations.

A truck, if maintained well, can run 24 hours. But a driver cannot be on perpetual duty.

“So, we have double drivers who can switch duties, or we have driver relay system,” explained Sharma. In a double driver system, there is a sleeper cabin, allowing one driver to rest while the other drives.

Driver relay systems are different. A Delhi-Ahmedabad route, for instance, is broken into Delhi-Jaipur and Jaipur-Ahmedabad, with different drivers for the two phases.

The driver who gets off at Jaipur takes another truck back to Delhi, so that he is back home the same night, said Sharma, adding this is much like flying hours for pilots.

“We have driving hours for a driver. This is fed into the system and drivers then do duties that they want to do. So, they come back home the same day, and essentially, don’t leave their ecosystem,” he added. Earlier, drivers used to come back home in 20-25 days.

DTDC, another logistics firm which uses two drivers, says that it has aligned its drivers with the metrics, and they get incentivised when they reach on time.

“We reach out to the drivers if they face problems. We try and get them services. Things could go wrong but at least we inform the customer immediately of a possible delay,” Executive Director Abhishek Chakraborty told BusinessLine . A few years from now, we may start seeing air-conditioned truck driver cabins, he added.

SP Singh, Senior Fellow of the Indian Foundation for Transport Research and Training, said the concept of relay drivers would require a lot of cargo and the challenge would be to ensure sustainability.

The Motor Vehicle Transport rules specify the need to have two drivers for vehicles with national permit carrying over 14 tonnes, he said. However, the overwhelming majority of trucks do not adhere to this condition as they look to cut costs for their end-customers in the highly unorganised and competitive industry, he pointed out.

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