Chennai first metro to get green freight policy

IIT Madras and Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) will partner with government bodies, policy makers, civil society and industries to create the city’s first ever Green Freight policies, which will be implemented in other metros.

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Updated:1st Sep, 2016 at 12:15 AM

Chennai

The project, titled Chennai Freight Partnership, will be handled by the Centre of Excellence for Urban Transport at the IIT Madras. The first step towards creating a sustainable urban freight policy was to get inputs from all the stakeholders involved, said Parthaa Bosu, Secretary, Green Freight India Working Group (GFIWG). “Green freight activity is quite common abroad, in countries like USA, Germany and China. Essentially, green freight activity looks at government and partner industries. But in the Chennai Freight Partnership, we are trying to involve the people. In addition to the economic growth, we will also be looking at air quality, congestions, health and accident zones,” he said, adding that the partnerships will be finalised in the next six months.

This strategic group will collect baseline data, develop a framework to estimate freight trip generation by different vehicle types in an urban area, identify route networks for trucks in Chennai and establish time-varying travel time maps for efficient routing and quantify emissions from truck movements. Bosu said Chennai’s green freight policies will set a precedent for other metros — Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Policy makers such as Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), Chennai Port Trust, Southern Railways and Bharat Petroleum as well as private players were present at the meet.

Urban freight transport is hardly spoken about but its importance is evident in the fact that 10% of total registered vehicles in Chennai are freight vehicles. K Rajamanickam, Senior Planner, CMDA said, “We are planning to develop elevated corridor and urban bypasses to segregate inter-city and intra-city freight transport. We will also develop outer ring road for better connectivity to sea ports and harbours.”

K Paulraj, Zonal Logistics Head, UltraTech, represented the interests of truck drivers. “Currently trucks are allowed to enter the city only between 10 pm to 7 am, which may not be enough to offload their goods,” he said. This meet will pave way for a research project to develop a comprehensive freight-planning framework for Chennai, funded by Shakthi Sustainable Energy Foundation.

FREIGHT LOGISTICS

The number of registered vehicles in Chennai: 47.58 lakh
Heavy vehicles account for 10% of this number.
Lack of parking bays, restricted timings into the cities, improper road infrastructure, poor lighting and lack of proper enforcement of traffic rules are major problems faced by drivers of heavy vehicles.
Reducing empty miles, which is the miles travelled by heavy vehicles in search of their next load, can cut down the amount of emissions.
Heavy vehicles account for 60% of the emissions.
Freight accounts for 35% of the world transport.
Coal accounts for 60% of rail freight in the city.
1.5 million tonnes of petrol from IOC for consumption outside the country goes by rail.

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Chennai first metro to get green freight policy

IIT Madras and Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) will partner with government bodies, policy makers, civil society and industries to create the city’s first ever Green Freight policies, which will be implemented in other metros.

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