Maruti offsets 3,000 tons of CO2 by using rail transport

Maruti Suzuki has transported over 6.7 lakh cars through Indian Railways in the past 6 years, which is said to have enabled the carmaker offset nearly 3,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The use of rail transport is also said to have resulted in fuel savings of over 100 million litres, as the company could avoid more than 1 lakh truck trips.

The first dispatch by double decker flexi-deck rakes took place in March 2014. In the past 6 years, the carmaker has witnessed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 18%. In FY 2019-20, more than 1.78 lakh cars were transported by railways. This was a 15% increase compared to the previous year and nearly 12% of the total sales in the year.

Maruti Suzuki is said to be among the first carmakers to use railways for transporting vehicles. Initially, single deck converted rakes were used. The New Modified Goods (NMG) rakes that were converted from old passenger coaches had a capacity of 125 cars.

Later, BCACM rakes were used. These were purpose-built double decker rakes that had a capacity of 265 cars. More than 1.4 lakh cars have been dispatched through these rakes.

Nowadays, BCACBM rakes with a capacity of 318 cars are used. These are designed to operate with a speed limit of 95 km/h. Maruti has more than 27 such high capacity rakes.

Maruti Suzuki is the first Indian carmaker that has an Automobile Freight Train Operator (AFTO) license. This allows private firms to fabricate and operate high speed, high capacity auto-wagon rakes on the Indian Railways network.

At present, Maruti Suzuki utilises five loading terminals (Gurgaon, Farukhnagar, Kathuwas, Patli and Detroj) and 13 destination terminals (Bangalore, Nagpur, Mumbai, Guwahati, Mundra Port, Indore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, NCR, Siliguri and Agartala).