Potential of logistics facility through regional rapid transit system (RRTS)

Abstract

The National Capital Region (NCR) is one of the largest urban agglomerations with Delhi as its centre spreading over four states. The region’s population has grown at almost 1.5 times the total average all India growth rate. Ghaziabad and Meerut are the big satellite cites in the NCR with a daily ridership of around 8 lakhs through train and road in the present scenario which causes congestion. So, a semi-high speed Regional Rapid transit system (RRTS) is proposed to address the issue of congestion. Delhi being a distribution as well as a major consumption hub, which results in the increase in commercial trucks that lined up at the Delhi border which further add traffic, encroaches the lanes, cause accidents and emissions etc. So, this big proposed network of RRTS can also be used to eliminate the big commercial vehicle from the roads and transportation of freight by RRTS can prove to be a fast alternative for the logistics companies in Delhi NCR. This thesis focusses to find the potential to run the logistics services on a fast rail based intercity transportation system to further decongest Delhi NCR from commercial truck traffic and transporting the freight on a fast and green corridor. It draws the comparison between the existing road-based supply chain with the rail-based supply chain (RRTS) on different factors like transportation cost, delivery time, frequency, accidents etc. The research design starts with literature review on functioning of RRTS, various logistics services used in and around NCR and check for the potential for use of RRTS for logistics management through various case examples. The site is selected to be a stretch from Sarai Kale Khan to Duhai on various parameters, and is followed by data collection for the logistics need from seven e-commerce and courier service companies. A comparative analysis of road-based logistics service and Rail based logistics service (RRTS) on certain fixed attributes, leads to development of a framework for running RRTS as a logistics service.