Amazon & Indian Railways Team Up For Faster Parcel Deliveries

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posted on 2 months ago — updated on 1 second ago

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This partnership aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a more multimodal and sustainable transportation system, contributing to India's broader goals for development.

Amazon India and the Indian Railways have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance package delivery across the country.

This agreement aims to improve transportation speed and reliability by leveraging the Indian Railways’ extensive network.

Under the MoU, Amazon and Indian Railways will work together to create a hub-and-spoke model for one specific route. The insights gained will help expand this model throughout the network. The plan focuses on optimizing first and last-mile delivery, reducing transit times, and exploring cost-effective options to handle more parcels via rail. Amazon will also offer recommendations to enhance the efficiency of the rail-based parcel logistics.

Abhinav Singh, Vice President of Operations at Amazon India, emphasized the partnership’s alignment with the government’s vision for economic growth. “Since 2019, we have collaborated to create an innovative logistics model that combines Amazon’s e-commerce expertise with Indian Railways’ vast and reliable network. This continues to enable fast delivery of crores of products across the country,” he said.

Ravinder Goyal, Member (Operations and Business Development) of the Railway Board, praised the MoU. “Indian Railways has launched many parcel services as well as the Virtual Aggregation Platform (VAP) to ease and encourage adoption of rail for parcel delivery and I therefore appeal to the e-commerce business to use this facility for mutual gain,” he said.

Amazon India began its partnership with Indian Railways in 2019, becoming the first e-commerce company to use railways for express parcel delivery. Since then, it has expanded from one train to over 120, covering 130 routes across 91 cities, marking a 15-fold increase in parcel movement.

In 2023, Amazon became the first e-commerce company to use Dedicated Freight Corridors, aimed at reducing network congestion, increasing train speeds, and lowering logistics costs. This partnership supports Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a more multimodal and sustainable transportation network.