Really Trucking Drives In

With its tech-enabled relay-trucking model, rivigo has shaken up the almost moribund road transportation sector. This may be just what logistics players need to drive into the future. 

- Deepti Chaudhary

THE SCENE: A DHABA on a dusty highway somewhere in Rajasthan. A brightly painted truck pulls up to join the many others parked there, and the driver and cleaner clamber out. Even as they enter the dhaba, two other men head to the truck, open the fuel tank, and check the fuel level using a dipstick. Their job is to check that no fuel has been siphoned offen route. It’s important; one of the big expenses for trucking firms is fuel, and industry estimates suggest that up to 8% of diesel gets stolen from trucks on the road.

Deepak Garg and Gazal Kalra were convinced there was a better way of checking. The two had worked at consulting firm McKinsey before quitting to set up Rivigo, a Gurugram-based technology-driven logistics company in 2014. Like others in the industry, they used the dipstick test as well, but were sure there was a better way. There are fuel sensors, sure, but those are for electronic engines; the trucks here still run on old mechanical engines. (Electronic engines allow precise metering and delivery of fuel into the combustion chamber of diesel engines.)

“We looked at nearly 30 different sensors and then built our own which worked better for the Indian scenario. We trained the algorithm to identify pilferages in the network,” says Garg, chief executive, Rivigo. Today, all Rivigo trucks come with sensors that provide alerts in case of anomalies, and also generate daily reports to reveal fuel thefts, if any. Even before a driver takes out a truck, Rivigo can tell the mileage he will have based on his historical driving data. The data that the algorithm captures help drivers improve mileage.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, and you’d think savings on fuel alone should keep Rivigo afloat. But that’s not the only thing this three-year-old startup has done to disrupt trucking in India.