Road Transport, the bright future-2

Ramesh Kumar*

Over the past few days, I have been poring over the “Report of Working Group on Road Transport for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17)” released recently. It is an interesting document and felt I will not be able to do justice to this precious tome in one single long piece. Moreover, to retain the attention span of potential readers, the offerings have to be in small doses. Like it is said that even the tastiest pizza has to be cut into small pieces to be cherished. Small indeed is beautiful and meaningful. Here is the Second Installment.

To read the First Installment, check out http://goo.gl/m8gYd

Ask the Government of India the following:

(a) What is the total length of National/State Highways?

(b)   What is the budget allocation for the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways?

(c)    How much money has been pooled under the Central Road Fund through the cess on petrol?
(d)   How much money the government will be collecting through Bridges and Roads this fiscal?
(e)   What is the actual freight carried on Indian roads?
(f)     What is the actual transaction cost of freight carried by lorries?

Be rest assured that you will receive the most authentic information for items (a) to (d) because the government has managed to collate, assimilate and aggregate these data over years.

Be rest assured that you will receive a vapid and not-so-sure kind of response to items (e) and (f). Why? Lack of reliable and authentic data, a fact admitted to by the Sub Group on Passenger & Freight Traffic Assessment and Adequacy of Fleet & Data Collection and Use of IT in Transport Sector released recently. Let me quote from the Report:

“Currently the database on road transport is restricted to number of registered  motor vehicles category-wise as required by the Motor Vehicle Act. There is a complete lack of regular and reliable data on freight movement, passenger movement on private buses, trucking industry, transaction costs involved in inter-state movement of goods and passengers etc.” (emphasis mine).

That’s fine. Diagnosis is complete. What next? The treatment or remedial action. What that is going to be? The Sub Group recommends that “to overcome data gaps… detailed surveys be carried out by NSSO which could be supplemented by professional organizations … in the interim period as data on freight commodity flows origin/destination under the Carriage by Road Act 2007 will take some time to get streamlined/organized”. These surveys, it is recommended, be carried out every five years, covering the following:

Ø  Freight movement by road transport: origin, destination, size, type of freight and its movement by type of vehicle and age.
Ø  Trucking industry: For evaluation of trucking operations and policy formulation, acquisition cost of vehicle, operating cost, financing, vehicle technology, vintage, turnaround time, utilization (distance covered in a month/year), time and resources spent on detention of vehicles at check posts/barriers.
Ø  Time Motion Surveys: To assess time spent on various activities related to document compliance/clearances at barriers to ascertain transaction costs faced by road freight/passenger industry
Ø  Motor Vehicle Statistics: Motor Vehicles Act provides for maintenance of State registers of motor vehicles. ICT based vehicle registration “Vahan” launched July 2011 will enable RTOs to process vehicle registration, fitness, motor vehicles taxes, permits and enforcement on line and get data computerized for storage, retrieval and investigation/analysis.

Across the globe, the data on vehicles is in terms of “vehicles in use”.  This is where, the use of information technology can come in handy. An “Intelligent Transport Systems” or ITS is mooted in this regard. A baby step for India, no doubt. It will some time before things fall in place. Matured economies had gone through a significant period of trial and error. Late start in India is not a dampener because costs have come down and products are more refined.

Okay, the Sub Group has recommended something. What’s the ground reality?

Let’s examine this in the next dispatch.

(To be continued)

·         Author of 10,000 KM on Indian Highways, Publisher of Supply Chain India and Consulting Editor of SAARC Journal of Transport