Interview Clean Air Initiative

1. Carbon emission & fuel savings are some of the great challenges that India is facing. However the need for transportation has never been so huge. How to achieve success towards sustainable mobility?

• (I m assuming this question has nothing to do with Green Freight and is a gen qn)

The transportation needs of the country are growing and it will grow further as the villages grown into towns and towns into cities and cities outgrow in size. Rapid urbanization has to ask for more connectivity of course, but the question is how to deal with in. Symptomatic treatment approach to issues has been what the country has been adopting, but for providing ‘sustainable mobility’ a more preplanned approach and foresight is required. I don’t want to get into repeating the numerous international examples for adopting sustainable mobility solutions for a city and specifically cities in India; and rather would like to say that necessity is the mother of inventions and Someone (either the policy makers or the citizens) has to first feel the “need”! If a country or city adopts expensive (per km) public transport options for its citizen, neglects non motorized transport at a time when the entire world is looking at more energy efficient, cheaper mass transport options it only means that the country or the city has not yet realized its “needs”.

2. You co organized with the SIAM the Green Freight Seminar during 11^th Auto Expo. You call for a better stakeholders education. How do you plan to raise awareness among corporates?

Green Freight would be a new idea for India, as ‘Freight’ was a neglected sector but slowly gaining attention. Its stakeholders would be many – Truck Manufacturers, Fleet Operators, Drivers, Policy Makers, testing agencies etc.
Yes, one of the main reasons for doing this seminar with the industry body like – SIAM is because it is essential to expose the stakeholders and the corporates to the various best practices across the world. Initiatives like what Mr Prem Verma, CEO TML Distrbution and Sweeny Chawla, DHL talked about is something that more and more corporates must know and adopt or atleast are a stakeholder.

3. As you claim, there is a huge need for R&D investment regarding clean technologies. But such technologies are expensive. What is the way to make them adopted among freight players?

Expensive is a relative term. Is it expensive when compared to the cost of environmental impacts or health impacts? The fact remains that if any technology is expensive – then it is only expensive for the users, that is why cost of first launches – Air conditioners, Mobile Phones or connections or LED TVs are always high because the companies try to gain the cost of technology (R&D investments) quickly.
But again, the government has to decide that which R&D investments are ‘essential’ and which are ‘desirable’ and support essential R&D investments.
4. For example, which kind of concrete technologies that already exist would you like to be adopted as soon as possible? Is it regarding engine or equipment or?
Su: According to our experience from Guangzhou, Guangdong, and China GF projects, we summarize such technologies as follows:
Aluminum wheels (equipment, tested on Guangzhou trucks)
Low rolling resistance tires (equipment, tested on Guangzhou trucks)
Tire pressure monitoring system (equipment, tested on Guangzhou trucks)
External signal booster (equipment, tested on Guangzhou trucks)
Cabin fairing (equipment, tested on Guangzhou trucks)
Nose cone (equipment, tested on Guangzhou trucks)
Electrified parking spaces / truck stop electrification (equipment)
Auxiliary power unit (auxiliary engine)
Various kinds of aerodynamic technologies (equipment)
Diesel oxidation catalyst; diesel particulate filters (equipment)
We propose to adopt such above technologies that under US EPA’s verification or at least local verification procedures.
Chee ann: I need to see this

5. What is the next step? Please explain what are the initiatives you plan to launch with government and industries?

Broadly:
1. National green freight programs or initiatives in all major Asian countries that are consistent and build on the US SmartWay Transport Partnership and other programs and that cover technologies, logistics, financing, partnerships, knowledge management and capacity building
2. A strong Green Freight Asia Network of private sector companies to share experiences, foster collaborations between shippers/logistics providers and truck companies, scale up efforts jointly, and provide input into national initiatives
3. Streamlined methodologies/protocols for fuel and CO2 measurement and reporting and a central database for data from freight carriers, national statistics, and other studies.
Specific to the India:

1. Form working Groups
   1. Work on Policies
   2. Driver Trainings
2. Organise Pilot Projects

Chee Ann: Can some one write this. This is on reference to GF and I feel we should try and write (w/o referring China) how we are going ahead with China