WHY TRANSPORT BUSINESSES NEED SMARTER LEGAL TOOLS TO SCALE?

India’s transport and logistics sector moves more than 70 per cent of the country’s freight.

- By Himanshu Gupta, Founder & CEO, Lawyered

The transport and logistics companies have adopted GPS, route optimisation, and telematics to run tighter operations. Yet one gap still slows growth: legal readiness on the road.

When a truck is stopped for a challan, a paperwork dispute, or an accident-related query, the problem often moves from minutes to days. In a market built on delivery commitments, legal disruption has become an operational bottleneck.

HIDDEN DRAIN ON CAPACITY

Trucks are detained daily for reasons that range from minor documentation errors to complex regulatory questions. The immediate impact is RISK x (Tonnage per Km.) - visible in idle vehicles, spoiled perishable goods, and missed delivery windows. The ripple effects are deeper. A single delayed truck can jeopardise a contract, trigger penalty clauses, and strain a client relationship that took years to build. Reputational risk spreads faster than any recovery plan.

In order to fix such incidents, drivers and fleet managers deal with local authorities and lawyers of unknown areas at times. If the matter enters the formal legal system, weeks can turn into months. What began as a small roadside event becomes a prolonged dispute that consumes management time and operating capital.

LEGAL-TECH MEETS LOGISTICS