How Indian airlines, airports are preparing for distribution of the Covid vaccine

How Indian airlines, airports are preparing for distribution of the Covid vaccine

As some of the coronavirus vaccine trials across the world are in their final stages, Indian airports and airlines have geared up to to handle the distribution of temperature-sensitive vaccines in the country.

Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport and GMR Hyderabad airport's cargo are set to play a pivotal role in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines as they are equipped with the state-of-the-art time and temperature-sensitive distribution system.

"Delhi Airport has two cargo terminals with world-class infrastructure that provides Good Distribution Practices - certified temperature - controlled facility for handling temperature-sensitive cargo. With the capacity to handle over 1.5 lakh MT per annum, this facility has state-of-the-art temperature-controlled zones with separate cool chambers ranging from 25 to -20 degree Celsius, which would be extremely conducive for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines," a Delhi International Airport Limited spokesperson said.

"There are Cool Dollies at the airside that ensure unbroken cool chain during temperature-sensitive cargo movement between terminal and aircraft. The terminals have separate gates dedicated for fast movement of vehicles carrying vaccines in and out of the airport," he added.

The emphasis has been laid on quick and efficient transportation and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines whenever they are available.

GMR Hyderabad airport said the terminal is equipped with various temperatures ranging from -20 to 25 degree Celsius with state-of-the-art equipment and cool containers to cater to product-specific requirements.

"GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo (GHAC) boasts of India's first Pharma Zone with GDP-certified temperature-controlled facility for handling temperature-sensitive cargo... The Freighter Parking stands are just 50 metres away from the terminal thereby minimizing the ramp exposure timing and ensuring quick turn-around of the aircraft.

"We have recently launched the latest Cool Dollies -- which is a Mobile Refrigeration Unit for Airside Transportation designed to eliminate any temperature excursions and to maintain the Unbroken Cool Chain. The GHAC also boasts of one of India's largest storage facility for Cool Containers like Envirotainer, C-Safe, Unicooler, and Vaqtainer within our premises to make sure the service is available for customer 24x7," Hyderabad Airport said.

An official of SpiceJet said the airline is fully prepared and ready to handle the COVID-19 vaccine. The airline spokesperson said the airline has extensive experience in the past and already carries blood samples, which require a temperature-controlled environment.

"Today we have the facility of both our aircraft and our ground support vehicles. We have sufficient capacity to cater to the rise in demand for the COVID-19 vaccine shipments and have prepared the capacity keeping in mind the future. We have been transporting vaccine shipments to various international as well as domestic destinations," SpiceJet spokesperson told ANI.

"The transportation of these consignments requires cold chain facilities. SpiceXpress offers cargo shipment with a controlled ambient temperature between 25 degrees C to freezing -40 degrees Celsius. The service is suitable for sensitive drugs, vaccines and blood samples and with the extra protection of thermal blankets in the world-class active RKN and RAP containers." SpiceJet spokesperson said.

Medical experts have said the upcoming coronavirus vaccine will require specific cold storage and controlled temperatures.

The Robot Ships are coming

Sometime in April 2020, a 50-foot-long autonomous ship will shake loose the digital bonds of its human controllers, scan the horizon with radar, and set a course westward across the Atlantic. The Mayflower Autonomous Ship will get orders from an “AI captain” built by programmers at IBM.

The Mayflower’s computing system processes data from 30 onboard sensors and six cameras to help the ship sail across the ocean, obey shipping rules (like how to pass other ships at sea), and control electrical and mechanical systems like the engine and rudder. There won’t be anyone on board if something goes wrong, although it does have to send a daily report to a human operator back in the UK. Today, the Mayflower is a remote-controlled craft chugging around Plymouth Harbor. Transforming it into a fully autonomous sailing vessel by next April will be a big deal for Andy Stanford-Clark, IBM’s UK and Ireland chief technology officer. Stanford-Clark and colleagues have been building the AI captain for the past few years, training it with more than a million images of ships, buoys, and natural features such as cliffs and icebergs. The algorithms that allow it to make navigation decisions may include some wildcards as well, Stanford-Clark says.

The Mayflower Autonomous Ship and its silicon-based captain will sample the ocean for plankton and microplastics. That’s part of its scientific mission for the project’s sponsor, US-based nonprofit research organization ProMare, which is leading the $1.5 million project along with IBM and UK maritime tech startup Marine AI. Clark is crafting a set of commands to allow the software that runs each experiment to ask the AI captain to divert the ship to accommodate something the experiment wants to measure.

The Mayflower 

The Mayflower is undergoing sea trials this month to integrate the AI captain with the rest of the ship, a trimaran made of lightweight aluminum and composite materials that resembles a trident-shaped dagger slicing through the water. The central hull contains the ship’s AI brain (several Nvidia Jetson AG devices that operate locally and don’t require large-bandwidth satellite connections to process data and make decisions), a cargo bay with room for 1,500 pounds of scientific gear, and deck-mounted solar panels that charge lithium-ion phosphate batteries to run the engines and other electrical systems. It has a backup diesel engine in case the sun doesn’t shine. If all goes well, the Mayflower will make test runs to Dublin, Ireland, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in early 2021 before its trans-Atlantic voyage in April 2021.

Although the ship won’t carry passengers or cargo, the artificial intelligence and advanced autonomy that it is testing is now slowly making its way into commercial ships. From the Baltic Sea to Singapore, shipping companies are plugging in new AI-based navigation systems to take humans off the bridge, or at least make life easier if they stay on board. Like airplanes, nearly all big ships have an autopilot that navigates from point to point when there's not much going on. But the new programs would allow ships to sail autonomously or with little control through crowded shipping lanes or at ports, as well as reacting to hazards at sea.

AI-driven tugboats and tenders are parking cargo ships, ferries that dock by themselves are moving cars and people across waterways, and soon small cargo ships will be hauling fertilizer and groceries around Scandinavian fjords with little or no crew. This maritime transformation is being led by advancements in AI and sensor technologies, as well as a general rethinking of how to move goods across the globe with fewer people to both save money and avoid the pandemic. Some ships are being retrofitted, some are being built from scratch, but it’s likely that smaller ones will be first to sea with AI at the helm.

These new seaborne systems are facing the same hurdles as autonomous vehicles—liability fears, uncertain regulations, and concerns about cybersecurity. At the same time, companies developing AI-based ships and navigation systems are seeing growing demand for their technology. Shippers want to avoid their cargo getting stranded at sea or in port because sailors have contracted the coronavirus. One marine executive said harbor pilots, the locally based navigators who steer big ships the final miles, are reluctant to board because of coronavirus risks. That is slowing down what used to be a routine procedure when massive ships enter crowded ports or treacherous river mouths.

For these commercial shippers, the near future is not a self-driving Uber, but more like a driver-assisted Tesla. They don’t expect AI to replace captains of larger ships, but to augment them.

“In the open sea, there are situations where the person is quite bored,” says Hendrik Busshoff, product manager for autonomy at Wärtsilä Voyage, a Helsinki-based maritime technology firm that is providing high-resolution radar equipment to the Mayflower project as well as several other autonomous ships.

“We may not remove the person from the ship, but we will remove them from the bridge and have them do more high-value work and call the person in when they are needed,” Busshoff says.

That kind of high-level planning by an AI-captain is being deployed today in Norway, where Kongsberg Maritime has built a 260-foot-long autonomous, zero-emissions ship called the Yara Birkeland.

When Kongsberg first began discussions with Norway-based global fertilizer giant Yara back in 2017, the plan was to build a completely unmanned vessel that could load, sail, and unload its cargo in between three Norwegian ports with no human intervention. But that changed after Kongsberg officials realized that they would have to convince Norwegian and international regulators to draft an entirely new set of rules to allow bigger ships like the Yara Birkeland to operate without a human captain on board.

“In 2017, there was no question that [our ships] were going to be unmanned,” says An-Magritt Tinlund Ryste, Kongsberg’s autonomy project manager. “But you also realize there are no rules and regulations, they are all based on having a human on board. You either need permission or you have to change the rule set.”

So Kongsberg shifted gears. After the hull of the Yara Birkeland was built in a Romanian shipyard and launched in February 2020, Kongsberg decided to add several crew members on the fertilizer transport vessel while keeping the autonomous systems. The humans would act as an insurance policy if something went wrong. The Yara Birkeland’s sea route would have replaced the 40,000 trips a year the company’s trucks make hauling fertilizer around the fjords by land, reducing both diesel pollution and making those rural roads safer. But the pandemic has delayed the ambitious project, according to an October 20 earnings call by Yara International CEO Svein Tore Holsether.   

Yara Birkeland 

While the Yara Birkeland is on hold, Kongsberg is moving ahead with two additional autonomous ships to deliver 16 electric grocery supply trucks each from a warehouse on one side of Oslo’s main fjord to a distribution site on the other. Kongsberg signed a contract with grocer ASKO on September 1, and the ships are expected to be delivered in 2022. The two vessels will initially operate with a reduced crew before moving toward unmanned voyages. Norwegian maritime officials have given the thumbs up and will be overseeing the project.

Kongsberg’s Ryste says that after satisfying regulators, the biggest challenge in building autonomous ships is planning for something going wrong with the weather, the ship, or communication systems. “How do you meet your minimum-risk conditions? How does the vessel operate if you lose all connectivity to shore and how do you build that into the architecture?” Ryste says. “How do you make the right decisions? You need to be mindful of a dynamic picture around you.\

The consequences are enormous if the autonomous systems fail on a big cargo ship like the Yara Birkland or the ASKO freight ferries and they collide with a smaller vessel or the dock. Which is why some marine autonomous companies are starting small.

Boston-based Sea Machines has put its autonomous control systems on more than 50 vessels, including tug-pushed oil barges along the East and Gulf coasts, small workboats, and oil-drilling support and supply boats, according to founder and CEO Michael Johnson. These control systems automate many functions and identify hazards more quickly for the human captain on the bridge. None are running by themselves yet.

At the same time, the firm is testing a new, 29-foot-long workboat for the US Coast Guard that can be operated by remote control from shore or switched to a fully autonomous mode. Johnson says the pandemic-related shutdown is good for his business. He’s getting calls from shippers wanting to move cargo without worrying about the latest lockdowns.

“You have large shipping companies that can’t change out their crews and hundreds of thousands of sailors that were trapped in March on their vessels because they couldn’t get flights out or because of the overall risk of bringing a new crew on board,” Johnson says. “Executives at these companies are looking to de-risk this.”

As the rise of the machines at sea continues, regulators are taking notice. The International Maritime Organization, a UN-agency that regulates international shipping, is in the middle of a “scoping exercise” to come up with new rules for autonomous ships sailing across the sea. It has identified four levels of autonomy for ships: The first is a ship with automated processes and decision support, with a human crew ready to take control; the second is a remote-controlled ship with a human crew; degree three is a remote-controlled ship without a crew; and level four is a fully autonomous ship that is able to make decisions and determine actions by itself.

Mahindra exports Bolero pickups to Bangladesh on Indian Railways

The Indian automotive industry has been intensifying its ties with the Indian Railways and making quick progress in adopting more sustainable and faster modes of transporting newly-built vehicles.

After Kia Motors India's recent news of having shipped 5,000 SUVs on the 50th railway rake that left Penukonda junction in Andhra Pradesh on October 13, homegrown automaker Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is now seen leveraging the expansive network of the Indian Railways that goes beyond borders.

The company loaded 87 Mahindra Bolero pick-up vans in Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra, outbound to Benapole in Bangladesh – a 2,100km journey. This is the first time the operation has been conducted. 

Union Minister for Railways, Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, in a tweet on October 25, said, "Boosting automobile exports: Railways loaded 87 Mahindra Bolero pick-up vans from Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra to Benapole in Bangladesh. Offering safe, swift and economical logistics solutions, Railways has emerged as a preferred mode for automobile transportation."

Indian Railways bullish on automobile freight traffic

The Railways Minister had recently met representatives from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) as well as professionals from OEMs such as Maruti Suzuki India, Tata Motors, M&M, Honda Cars India and Ford India to announce several measures to make the railroad beneficial for the auto industry. He gave an assurance and committed to meet the industry's demands, including opening more loading terminals across the country as well as facilitating exports to Bangladesh and Nepal – two of the neighbouring markets for vehicle manufacturers in India.

With its efforts and expansion plans, the Railways is targeting a 20 percent share of automotive logistics by FY2021-22 and has a roadmap to grow it further to 30 percent by FY2023-24.

Demand for Mahindra Bolero picking up

The hardy Bolero, which is M&M's flagship pickup brand, has been soldiering along for over two decades now. In August 2019, the company crossed the milestone of producing 1,500,000 units of the rugged pickup which is available in four-wheel-drive pickup, CBC pickup, CNG as well as customised forms.

The Bolero pickup is used for diverse applications including the delivery of agricultural products, dairy products, consumer goods, construction equipment, logistics, fisheries, cash vans and some vans are also deployed in Swachh Bharat initiatives. With a 58 percent market share in FY2019, it continues to enjoy a leadership position in the pickup segment in India.

Congestion at Colombo Port becomes a boon for Cochin Port : Transshipment business gets boosted at Cochin Port Trust

Congestion at Colombo Port becomes a boon for Cochin Port : Transshipment business gets boosted at Cochin Port Trust

The congestion at Colombo Port has turned out to be an excellent opportunity for Kochi at least in terms of gaining transshipment business following the diversion of some ships.

Of late, the International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam has started receiving additional mainline ships on ad hoc basis with transshipment volumes following the diversion of MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company)  to Kochi. The rising number of Covid cases among port workers in Colombo, has aggravated the existing congestion in that port.

Besides Kochi, Kamrajar Port near Chennai has also received one mainline vessel from Colombo with transshipment cargo, highly placed sources in the shipping fraternity said.

Advantage Kochi

The pandemic condition has not yet eased and this coupled with an earlier strike by workers at Colombo has worsened the situation, resulting in the delay in turnaround of many mainline vessels prompting them to look at alternatives, the sources said.

Cochin Port Trust received first vessel MSC Stella on November 7, followed by MSC Qindao (November 9) and Anton Schulte (November 11) and ER Yukohama (November 14) Calls for two more vessels during this month have been finalised. Discussion are on for bringing more vessels.

Kochi has so far handled about 2,856 teus (Twenty-foot equivalent units) of foreign transshipment containers. The anchoring of these vessels has translated into a revenue earning of ₹2 crore by way of vessel related charges apart from 33.3 per cent of revenue sharing from DP World, the terminal operator, the sources said.

Volumes are UP

According to Praveen Joseph, CEO, DP World Kochi, the terminal has been seeing a steady increase in its transshipment volumes due to diversion of vessel calls from Colombo. These transshipment cargoes from MSC’s trans-continental services are to destinations such as Beira (Mozambique), Mersin (Turkey). “We are equipped to deal effectively with the customers’ needs and are constantly striving to create the competitive advantages to attract both gateway and transshipment volumes to Kochi”, he said adding that the terminal has clocked a 16 per cent rise in transshipment volumes in the first 10 months of 2020.

The handling of these mainline vessels will definitely boost Kochi’s image in wooing transshipment cargoes especially at a time when the port is positioning itself as a transshipment hub of India to reduce the dependency on foreign ports for transshipment of Indian cargo.

During the difficult and challenging periods of Covid-19, box traffic was down by five per cent. However, the difficult period is over and traffic started picking up after the easing of lockdown, reporting an all-time high monthly traffic of 62,472 teus in September, port officials said.

Truck OEMs are excited about Trucking-as-a-Service

Truck OEMs are excited about Trucking-as-a-Service

Technology is transforming the logistics companies we’re so used to working with.

Autonomous trucking, artificial intelligence (AI), and the internet of things (IoT) are really making a big dent in the way the industry works, but they’re also fuelling other changes in the industry, all aligned with the ultimate goal of moving to a Trucking-as-a-Service (TaaS) or Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS) model.

In its simplest form, TaaS is about supply chain operators gaining access to trucks on-demand, be it an autonomous truck or one that is driven by a human. In either case, however, the truck will need significant telematics and support to ensure tracking, mapping, management, and optimization of routes.

In fact, according to Frost & Sullivan, the surge in service and solution based revenue streams following the rise in digital transformation, autonomous trucking, urban trucking, platformization, and dealership evolution is expected to propel the US$11.2 billion TaaS market toward US$79.42 billion in 2025.

Further, according to the team, digital freight brokerage is expected to be the biggest market segment with revenue potential of US$54.2 billion, while the telematics devices segment is anticipated to grow from 25.7 million units in 2018 to more than 73.1 million in 2025.

What’s most interesting to note, however, is that the rise of TaaS will make life much easier for small businesses looking for new, innovative, and cost-effective ways to transport their goods, within the city and outside the country.

With the e-commerce boom in the APAC coming quickly, TaaS will be a game changer for small and mid-sized businesses looking to reduce costs and provide more timely and better delivery experiences to customers.

 

Truck OEMs keen on helping TaaS take-off

Truth be told, truck original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as the Traton Group (formerly Volkswagen Truck & BUs), Daimler Trucks, and Volvo Trucks are driving the industry’s move to TaaS as a result of their investments in connected, autonomous, digital, and smart services,

Volvo, for example, recently introduced Volvo Connect, a new customer portal that offers a single interface for digital services and functions, Volvo Trucks makes it even easier for customers to access the full benefits of digitalization and connectivity.

“Volvo Connect will also contain a marketplace where additional services can be subscribed to and activated. Users can adapt the interface so that the information and services most important to them are quickly and easily accessible,” explained Volvo Connect Product Manager Carina Holm.

 

Traton and Daimler are making similar efforts and also trialing subscription services in certain localities and regions.

 

In the future, Frost & Sullivan believes Truck OEMs will generate new sources of income as a result of the digital services they offer.

 

“OEMs will be looking to deliver new services, such as automated freight aggregation, as a value-addition to their fleet customers,” said Frost & Sullivan Mobility Analyst Silpa Paul.

 

 

Here are five new revenue opportunities that TaaS will create for OEMs (and dealers):

# 1 | Collaborate with startups

Investing in start-ups involved in digital technologies. This will help OEMs cope with a highly integrated ecosystem of real-time diagnostics, online booking of services and repairs, remote repairs, assisted repairs, remote diagnostics, and prognostics.

 

# 2 | Build a better omnichannel CX

Leveraging omnichannel customer touchpoints to develop a seamless, personalized customer experience across digital and brick-and-mortar channels.

 

# 3 | Score bigger deals online

Developing a robust CRM program that can convert digital sales leads, build customer loyalty, and sell after-sales services and maintenance.

 

# 4 | Collect customer data post-sale

Differentiating through a connected after-sales offering. This will enable OEMs and dealerships to gain additional insights into customer behavior.

 

# 5 | Offer new technologies as upgrades

Servitizing new technologies such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), safety, health, wellness and wellbeing (HWW), and driver training.

 

Investors and occupiers to (re) imagine India industrial real estate

Investors and occupiers to (re) imagine India industrial real estate

Investors and occupiers are reimagining India logistics real estate strategies to take advantage of ongoing structural shifts and evolving market maturity across the country, according to JLL’s  ‘The Road Ahead – The Logistics Sector in Asia Pacific’ report.

“India logistics sector remain firmly on the radar of investors globally. Recent signs show the market becoming increasingly sophisticated. The inflow of capital into logistics has resulted in more complex transactions and greater participation by both established and new investors into the sector, which we expect to continue in the future as well,” said Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head (India), JLL.

As investors continue to reimagine their logistics strategies throughout the COVID-19 environment, JLL forecasts several key themes to gather momentum in India and reinforce the structural shift occurring in the sector.

Pursuit of platform deals: There is an increasing trend towards acquiring logistics platforms rather than individual assets in India including the recent Blackstone–AllCargo and Blackstone-Hiranandani transactions. Investors will increasingly pursue this route to gain captive tenant networks and achieve scale quickly in India.

Rapid institutionalisation: The world’s largest investors are investing more into logistics real estate. Blackstone’s acquisition of the GLP portfolio in the US during the third quarter of 2019 for USD 18.7 billion is the largest real estate deal in history.

Value upside: While growth in values is likely to slow in coming few years, investors’ confidence in the structural drivers for the logistics sector is expected to remain intact. Capital values are forecasted to stay relatively firm, with modest yield compression expected in some markets across the region.

The pandemic and lockdown, as expected, has affected the India logistics sector with overall leasing or absorption in top eight cities in India standing at 11 mn sq. ft. in H1, 2020 (Jan-Jun) as against a 12-quarter average or 7.3 mn sq. ft. However, there has been additional spike in short-term demand / temporary warehouses, (lease tenure of 6 – 11 months) demonstrating the underlying strength of the sector looking for substitute locations or business continuity planning locations for occupiers to mitigate for delays in delivery of under construction projects.

E-commerce continues to drive a reimagination of the Indian logistics sector. According to e-Marketer, online retail sales as a proportion of total retail sales stands at 14% globally in 2019. India has a huge growth opportunity with the e-commerce penetration rate standing at close to 5%. To fulfill potential, e-commerce and other sectors will increasingly push the sector in a three-dimensional growth path:

•           Length - Across the length of a city (suburban and in-city warehouses)

•           Breadth - Across the breadth of the county (tier 1 & tier 2)

•           Height – Early shoots of multi-storied warehousing

“The pandemic will accelerate trends already in play across the sector, such as increased internet penetration rates, expansion of online grocery, omni-channel retailing, rise of temperature-controlled storage and the integration of technology into logistics and warehousing. Led by occupier and investor commitments, the sector is well placed to respond to the post-COVID-19 recovery,” said Yogesh Shevade, Head - Industrial Services, JLL India.

Key shifts influencing occupier decision-making, expected by JLL to accelerate, include:

The evolution of last mile logistics: Faster last mile delivery focus of e-commerce boosts the in-city / urban logistics sector where conventional retail spaces, sheds, banquets, marriage halls are being considered for alternative usage for in-city warehousing across top cities.

Rise of third-party logistics: Outsourcing of logistics will be evaluated by many companies to achieve efficiency.

Frozen is the New Fresh: Temperature Controlled storage requirements will be gaining with consumers looking for ‘hygienic and safer’ frozen commodities.

On the manufacturing front, India is also experiencing the dual thrust of two major reform initiatives – Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self Reliant India) and Make in India. While, Atmanirbhar Bharat boosts domestic manufacturing and reduces imports, Make in India is expected to capitalize on regionalization of international supply chains and reimagine India as a global manufacturing hub.

“Manufacturing firms, especially in the ancillary and assembly space, will find solace in built manufacturing spaces on lease. Additionally, manufacturers will be positioned to realize the benefits of conversion of CAPEX (land & building) to OPEX (rent), ready-to-occupy and built-to-suit industrial spaces, higher specifications, faster entry, and pre-approved usage associated with built spaces,” said Chandranath Dey, Head - Industrial Operations & Business Development, JLL India.

Engineering goods exporters flag shortage of shipping containers, high freight rates

Engineering goods exporters have written to the Commerce Ministry complaining about an acute shortage of shipping containers and arbitrary increase in freight rates and have suggested that a regulator be set up to deal with the “monopolistic’’ practices of shipping companies.

Declining imports, especially from China, resulting in lower inward traffic, is one of the reasons cited by shipping lines for the shortage in containers for outward traffic and increase in freight, explained EEPC India in a letter.

''We understand that one of the reasons cited for such acute shortage (of containers), perhaps, is that as imports into India, especially from China are declining, shipping lines have told some exporters that for only outward traffic, freight rates will have to increase as there is less inward traffic. Further, such a large increase in freight charges is also impacting the competitiveness of exporters, apart from the non-availability of containers," the letter said.

EEPC further said the government should seriously consider its proposal, made at a recent high level meeting in the Ministry, for setting up a regulator which can combat arbitrary increases in shipping freights.

The engineering goods exporters body appreciated the government’s decision to extend five per cent exemption of GST on freight charges at a time when exporters are facing high cost of containers.

Engineering exports witnessed a sharp fall this fiscal so far although things have somewhat steadied recently, the EEPC said. In August, engineering exports dropped by 8.03 per cent. ''The outlook remains choppy, though global trade is opening up sequentially despite the Covid-19 pandemic,' the release stated.