The logistics industry is been considered a crucial sector to boost international trading as a consequence of globalization and digitization. The freight and logistics industry is been evolving rapidly and is regarded as the backbone of the economy in India since it ensures the quick, economical, and efficient transport of goods across India and many commercial sectors do need to rely on it. The advanced and advanced technologies had provided an increase in efficiency and combined the opening models in the trucking industry in India.
India is growing in e-Commerce by creating a conducive environment for e-Commerce logistics. The Indian e-Commerce logistics market has projected to reach 11.5 billion by the year of 2027USD. To address this increasing demand, e-Commerce giants, and retailers are partnering with third-party logistics (3PL) providers and transporter-like Best Lorry Transportation ServicesThrough the transporter, the communities and marketplace are helping them to reduce the time of investment and the operational cost during the time of shipping. In the terms of services required by these e-Commerce players, road transportation accounts for the largest share of the Indian e-Commerce logistic market. During 2019, it was around 64% of the overall freight transportation in India was been carried out by roadways. Now, presently this share is at 85% of the entire logistics sector.
Given the background, the need of the hour has robust, technology-driven road transportation- driven road transportation, efficient. However, there is a lot of type of discussion on the growth in e-Commerce warrants a deeper look into many challenges that the trucking community faces.
Challenges that are to be spare
Barriers to entry: In India’s fragmented and unorganized $250 billion logistics market, trucking takes up the largest shares. There are around 30 million small fleet owners who have made about 85% of it. Some of the largest hurdles these truckers and fleet owners face while establishing, sustaining, and scaling up their transporting businesses do a lack of reliable network connections, a lack of communications channels, a lack of visibility, distrust, and the absence of the overall ecosystems that will function in.
In the present scenario, the truck drivers do struggle to rely on the small personal network of agents to book loads, shippers to procure loads, and transporters. It is an offline and manual operational methodology that leads to offline payments of cash that usually become a point of contention since the truckers are often paid less than agreed, or the payments are delayed. The truckers mostly pay in this offline payment mode and sometimes end up suffering losses, which is the reason for the prevalent distrust. To address it, there should exist the need which establishes online payment that has integrations with the trucking platforms which provide for escrow payments and payment is released as per pre-determined milestones.
Infra needs: The government had taken positive steps to address this with the allocation of Rs.1,70,000 crores to the transportation sectors in Budget 2020-2021 which would boost last-mile connectivity, and another had an increase of 68% in the Union Budget during 2023, with the massive targets that have expanded the National Highway network by 25,000 km in 2022-2023. On top of it is the recent announcement of India’s 1st Pradhan Mantri Gati Shakti scheme, which will break and integrate the planning inter-ministerial for the planning of the infrastructure projects.
Moreover, there is no focused infrastructure creation does efforts had been made so far to provide ease of living for commercial vehicle drivers for the Durgapur to Guwahati Transport. The absence of rest areas and ergonomically planned pit stops that have the access to poor vehicle maintenance services, hygienic foods, and medicines, low wages, unplanned driving schedule, and the difficulty that gets returned the loads, lower profit margin.
Under the National Logistics Policy’s CLAP, the government does facilitate the development of the network of Logistics Parks by mapping it with the PM GatiShakti NMP, enhancing the visibility, and ensuring the optimum utilization, efficiency, and connectivity, there exists a critical need to map these with the requirement of the commercial vehicles drivers of transportation like Best Lorry Transportation Services as well.
Human Rights: The National Human Rights Commission recently issued an Advisory to the Union Territories, States, and Centre Administration to protect the human rights of the commercial truck drivers. It is observed by the Advisory that the commission had made rightful entitlement of truck drivers but they had never made any adequate organizations.
The NLP does focus on developing overarching logistics for the human resources strategies and the action plan for the capacity building that needs the transportation of the commercial vehicle drivers, which have been placed at the core.
Digitising Indian Logistics: By the end of 2026 India will become a $5 trillion and would earn a share of the global trade, by supporting the booming domestic e-commerce sector, it has become vital for building a strong road transportation logistics for the ecosystem that may be managed for the incoming demanding and also the potential growth, by keeping the requirement of the core needed in the sector in mind. Since the government is setting up the integrated logistics systems, also there is an exit in the immediate use case to nurture the trusted online transportation community that may help the road transportation sector like Durgapur to Assam Transport become sector players, that includes lorry and load owners, it helps to achieve the significantly higher levels of convenience and efficiency. Digital marketplaces do have the capability to address the operational issues that are offered around the clock for the booking facilities with the verified parties, giving the trucks visibilities to their operations, it helps in doing the route optimization with the ease of return load booking, it does reduce the fuel consumption, and all of these results increasing profits.
The shipping companies only need to register on this type of platform and need to upload their details, and they will receive the bidding from the logistics companies who are interested in transporting them. With the numerous verified logistics and truckers competing for every single load, the shippers will be benefited by getting the best price. Digital community platforms also offer integrated solutions like GPS tracking, secure payments, and chatting apps like WhatsApp for real-time communication. Digital logistics also has simplified documents with the introductions of permits, challans, e-copies of bills, etc. All of these efforts will be helping the truckers to save the additional time that will be spent on receiving, producing, and compiling the paper documents at the multiple stages of the journey.
Digitization efforts that are taken up by the transportation community platforms, the truck drivers are earning more than twice by increasing their truck utilization. The drivers will be now able to run the operation for 25 to 26 days per month since they are compared to the 15 to 16 days earlier on the routes of their selection as per their savings and conveniences too. Access to services like GPS tracking will ensure commercial vehicle drivers and their cargo’s safety, also the doctor’s consultation online will enable them to keep the track of their health, the transportation community, and the marketplace websites are fast gaining traction on the Indian road transportation sectors. During the festival season there will increase of 2x to 3x which is the expectation for the demand from end-consumer, and websites would be be enabled to the much-needed organized and planned approach which the Indian logistics sectors are needed to address who needs to address the peak e-commerce demands.
The Future Outlook:
The trusted and digital ecosystems have fully integrated with the end-to-end solutions, which keeps the requirement of the trucking community at the core, is needed of the hour. As omnichannel retailing. has retailing is reshaping the future of the e-Commerce technology platforms, and operations by focusing on digitizing efforts for the road transportation sectors would be crucial to stay ahead of the curve. All of these would enable the road transportation players, all of these do include the lorry owners, and transport SMEs that would comprehend the ever-changing competitive landscapes, the address will demand spurts during the festival seasons and will also improve the coverage to the rural demanding centers too. It will also help all the transporting sector players in contributing to reducing the logistics cost in India, it will improve in easing of doing business. It is very much evident that Inia’s e-Commerce is booming and would eventually be part of the consequential success of the transition from being unorganized, fragmented, and in small-scale to the community-driven that is been digitally enables the efficient transportation of the ecosystem.