The encyclopedia · Software & IT · Operational decision · 2014–2019
Rivigo's relay trucking keeps Indian trucks moving by swapping drivers
Rivigo fixed India's driver shortage by changing drivers every few hundred kilometres at pit stops, so trucks run nearly continuously and drivers sleep at home.
Rivigo
the move
Long-haul trucking in India depends on drivers who are away from home for weeks, which fuels a chronic shortage of truck drivers. Gurugram-based Rivigo built its business on relay trucking, an operating model where drivers change over after every few hundred kilometres through a network of relay pit stops.
Drivers are rostered back to their home base and return to their families every day. Rivigo says the model gives 'air equivalent' transit time, higher asset utilisation and safety four times better than the industry average, and it won a US patent in July 2019 for the algorithm that allocates drivers.
In August 2019 Rivigo launched Relay-as-a-Service for outside fleet owners, offering the pit-stop network, pilots, fuel, maintenance and cashless payments. One fleet owner reported 25–30 percent extra running per truck per month under relay.
why it works
- Drivers working short shifts near home made the job attractive enough to staff.
- Trucks no longer stopped for driver rest, so transit time approached airfreight.
- The patent protected the matching algorithm that made relay efficient.
- Selling relay to other fleets scaled the network without owning all the trucks.
what transfers
If the scarce resource is people, redesign the operation around them: splitting one long journey into short local shifts can raise asset utilisation and fix a labour shortage at once.
what came after
Rivigo became one of India's most-funded logistics startups and expanded relay into a service for other fleet owners. The company later faced funding and business-model pressures after 2022, but relay trucking remains the operating idea it introduced to Indian logistics.
references
- Rivigo launches disruptive relay trucking model in India
- Rivigo Launches Relay-as-a-Service to Benefit Fleet Owners and Truck Pilots in India
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