Wow! Maruti Suzuki India transports over 6.7 lakh cars through Indian Railways in 6 years; details

In March 2014, the company’s first dispatch of vehicles by double-decker flexi-deck rakes took place.

Indian Railways for transporting Maruti cars! In the past six years, over 6.7 lakh Maruti cars have been transported through Indian Railways. Recently, the country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) announced that the company has transported more than 6.7 lakh cars through the national transporter in the last six years, recording a CAGR of over 18 per cent. According to a PTI report, in March 2014, the company’s first dispatch of vehicles by double-decker flexi-deck rakes took place. In a statement issued by MSI, the company said that the increased focus on utilizing Indian Railways has helped it offset around 3,000 MT of carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, more than 100 million litre of fossil fuel was saved, as MSI could avoid over 1 lakh truck trips on the national highways, the auto major added.

According to MSI, during the last financial year, over 1.78 lakh cars were dispatched through the Indian Railways’ network. This registered a 15 per cent increase over the previous year. Interestingly, this accounted for approximately 12 per cent of total sales of the company in the year. MSI MD and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa was quoted in the report saying that, keeping in view the increasing volumes, the company felt the need for large scale logistics flow. For expansion and for risk mitigation, MSI realized that the company has to look beyond road mode logistics, Ayukawa said.

According to the report, the initiative was started by the auto maker with single-deck wagons that have the capacity to handle as many as 125 cars. Later, it shifted to double-decker rakes which have a capacity of a total of 265 cars. So far, more than 1.4 lakh cars have been dispatched through these rakes. Now, the carmaker uses 27 number of rakes. These rakes can be operated at a high speed of approximately 95 km per hour with each of these rakes having a capacity for 318 cars.

The company also claimed that it is the first auto manufacturer in India to obtain Automobile Freight Train Operator license. This license permits private companies to fabricate as well as operate high speed, high capacity auto-wagon rakes on the country’s rail network. At present, the auto maker uses five loading terminals- Gurugram, Patli, Kathuwas, Farukhnagar, and Detroj and as many as 13 destination terminals- Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Indore, Nagpur, Mundra Port, Ahmedabad, Siliguri, Chennai, Hyderabad, NCR, and Agartala, MSI said. The company further said that with the addition of Agartala, the reach of Indian Railways’ mode has now been extended to the far Northeast part of the country. With this, the transportation time to these states has been reduced by nearly half, it added.