A truck driving job is costing young men no less than their marriage. Long-distance truck drivers are becoming social outcasts in their villages with girls shunning them as potential bridegrooms.
But, now, driving to the rescue of these young men is a five- year-old start-up Rivigo Logistics, a firm that owns 3,000 trucks.
Relay model
Rivigo has devised a relay model, which ensures that drivers are at the wheels for four-five hours at a stretch, do not clock over 12 hours, and reach home the same day.
Rivigo, which has 5,000 drivers on the rolls, hopes to add 20 times that number and in the process solve the problem of truck driver shortage.
To make life easy for these drivers, another company GoBOLT is trying to ease the pain of dealing with police and other law enforcement officers, by making the company’s centralised call centre staff step in.
If a truck driver is stopped, he has to connect the police or authority with the central team over phone. This has two effects — drivers are discouraged from breaking rules to prevent being marked as rash drivers, and unreasonable demands made by law enforcement officers are dealt with by the company’s call centre. Rivigo, which also boasts of having about 100,000 trucks on its platform (but owned by others) takes interest in the social challenges the truck drivers face.
Deepak Garg, Founder and CEO, Rivigo, told BusinessLine , “Known as the 37th caste in their villages and communities, nobody wants to be a truck driver any more. They do not have family life as they are away from home, on the road in harsh and unhealthy conditions for long. Nobody wants to marry them.”
Garg feels the relay model provides drivers a balanced and meaningful life. To implement it, Rivigo has fitted onto trucks electronic logging devices that keep a tab on the working hours and also prevents driver fatigue. India should implement the rule under the Motor Transport Workers Act that provides for rest for drivers, he added.
Rivigo’s automatic relay pilot trip allocation system tracks duty hours of each driver and allocates the next duty only after mandatory rest. Drivers are informed of their duty hours through an app.
Less money, more peace
Drivers working on relay get a better quality of life, but make less money. They make ₹29,000-30,000 a month, which provides a decent standard of living in a village, according to Garg. They are insured, and have health insurance for ₹280 a month. For social security, they subscribe to the National Pension Scheme.
Rivigo admits that drivers can make almost 33 per cent more (₹40,000 a month) if they are ready to work longer hours.
Not everyone is an advocate of ‘the relay model’. For instance, GoBolt, which ran pilot projects with relay, found snags in the model and has now opted for a middle path.
“Productivity went down in the relay model, drivers had to wait for long, and they wanted more money. So, we use two drivers in long-distance trucks. When one drives, the other rests,” says Sumit Sharma, Cofounder, GoBOLT.
GoBOLT employs drivers on its rolls and provides them provident fund benefits. Both GoBOLT and Rivigo ensure drivers pay for maximum road expenses like fuel or toll in cashless methods — using cards or online. This secures the drivers apart from keeping transactions over board.