Rail link for Maruti factory: What this means for car transport logistics in India

Time of India

3 hours ago

Gurgaon:
Inauguration of a multi-modal cargo terminal at
Maruti Suzuki
's manufacturing plant in Manesar is being touted as a shift towards sustainable transportation that will help India's largest carmaker reduce its carbon footprint.
What is a multi-modal cargo terminal?
As the term suggests, a multi-modal terminal is a specially designed facility that helps transfer goods between different modes of transportation. The idea is to leverage the strength of different transportation modes – cost-efficacy and eco-friendliness of railways, flexibility and last-mile connectivity of road, and speed of air freight.
According to govt officials, there are 108 such terminals in India.
What about the Manesar terminal?
The two-storey terminal, India's largest such facility, was built over 46 acres inside Maruti Suzuki India's manufacturing plant in Manesar. It will be used exclusively by the automaker.
How will it operate and what are its benefits?
Cars manufactured at Maruti's Gurgaon plant will be transported by truck to the Manesar plant, where they will be loaded into railway coaches for dispatch to various destinations.
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Vehicles manufactured at the Manesar plant will be directly loaded into railway coaches from the cargo terminal for transporting across India.
This will reduce the carmaker's reliance on trailer trucks, eventually easing road and highway traffic, including in NCR. Officials told TOI the company engages 9,000 truck transporters for ferrying its vehicles across India.
How is this different from 'truck on train' RoRo (roll on, roll off) service?
The 'truck on train' service for auto parts, rolled out on the western freight corridor from Rewari last year, allowed companies to send trucks loaded with auto parts or vehicles to be loaded onto trains.
Once the cargo rakes reach their destination, trucks roll down the train and deliver the goods.
How will cars be transported across India from the terminal?
According to officials, the terminal will facilitate transport to 380 Indian cities. From the Manesar plant, cargo trains will go up to Patli station, which is part of the 126km Haryana Railway Orbital Corridor (HORC) project.
HORC, of which only the Manesar-Patli portion has been completed till now, will connect Palwal to Sonipat through a broad-gauge double railway line for both passenger and goods traffic.
The corridor, meant to decongest train traffic in Delhi with a bypass, will enable faster and more-affordable long-distance travel from Gurgaon, Manesar and other industrial hubs of Haryana.
Patli station also falls on the Northern Railway line, which goes to Rewari, where it can switch to the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC). This 1,500km freight corridor starts from Dadri in UP and transports goods up to Gujarat — where Mundra and Pipavav ports are located.
The freight corridor, once completed, will eventually reach JNPT port in Mumbai.
What is railways' share in transporting Maruti vehicles?
The automaker started dispatching its vehicles through railways over a decade ago. About 5% of vehicles manufactured by Maruti were transported via rail in 2014-15. This share steadily went up over the year, reaching 24% last financial year. The company says it aims to transport 35% of its production through trains by 2030-31.