Freight Industry Revolutionized by Emerging Online Truck Aggregator Start-Ups

A new brand of start-ups have emerged over the past few years, which focus on streamlining operations in the road freight industry. Swami Nath Yadav, a truck driver who has been working in the industry for over 20 years, claims that work and income off late have been increased. A part of this, he claims, is due to the rise of an online truck aggregator, TruckSuvidha. He comments, “As compared to Rs 8,000-10,000 earlier, I now earn Rs 14,000 a month. The trips are also planned in advance. Earlier there would be work only for 15 days, but now I am always on the move.” Apart from Yadav, over 23,000 transporters have witnessed their earnings grow with the emergence of new start-ups such as TruckSuvidha, which enhances ease of operations in their segment.

Ishu Bansal, co-founder of TruckSuvidha, operated by Sarvodaya Venture, says “We faced a lot of problems in our family business, when it came to getting trucks from different players. Truck drivers would charge us higher rates citing no return load. Moreover, there was no way of arranging trucks online, so we studied the market and started TruckSuvidha as a marketplace.”

The road freight industry in India is worth almost 50 billion USD, and is known for its lack of transparency in deals, arbitrary rates, all-cash transactions and delayed deliveries. However, the new range of start-ups are aiming to change that, such as TruckMandi, TruckSuvidha, Porter, BlackBuck, GoGo Truck, FreightBazaar and CargoExchange. “This segment is growing by 10 per cent every year. One of the biggest challenges is the sub-optimization of trucking capacity, especially on the back haul, so there was a need for a technology-driven platform to organise the industry,” says Prahlad Tanwar, director for transport and logistics at consultancy firm KPMG.

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