DIARYOFTHEHIGHWAYMONK-9 ... Start-ups, focus on driver health monitoring

Ramesh Kumar from Greater Noida 

Several summers ago, Bengaluru-based piles physician (Dr) Parameshwar shared his concerns about how sitting long hours in a single place - yes, sedentary we are talking about - leads to piles. Parameshwar pointed out long-haul truck drivers are plum piles patients next only to IT warriors clued to their desk- or laptops. Being a piles specialist practicing in the cyber city of India, he ought to know. Like HIV/AIDS, he explained, piles patients are ashamed of revealing this malaise openly and therefore suffer in silence. It is curable provided they consult physicians. Miles Without Piles is achievable, he would assert. 

Piles are something the transport fraternity is unlikely to contemplate. For them, driver health begins with a blood donation camp and ends with an eye check-up. Nothing beyond that. The joke among drivers is that everyone finger drivers for spreading HIV/AIDS and yet they want their blood! As far as the eye check-up and the subsequent act of "donating free spectacles" to them are concerned, these eyewear items are rarely worn by the gift receiver because drivers fear that spectacle disqualifies them from driving from the fleet owners' perspective. Why invite job loss? Better to remain vision deficient. Not entirely true, but such a perception does exist. That's why Parameshwar pinpointing the issue of piles made me sit up and examine.

Drivers' health is a serious issue. Their number is in the millions. So a huge target group. Stakeholders engage in perfunctory health checks via periodic camps. The seriousness of drivers' health by the interested parties can be gauged from the fact 99% of the trucks carry no First Aid Box, though it is a punishable offense under the CMVR norms! Who cares! 

Even the Narendra Modi government has not considered it worthwhile to include truck drivers among the Frontline workers category who ensured nonstop supply of essential items and medicines etc in the current Covid19 ambiance. 

Why such a long preamble? Covid or no Covid, the safety of cargo and vehicle hinges on the driver. An unhealthy or uneasy driver inside the cabin while on the roads is a risk. Drivers' health needs constant monitoring. It is doable. 

Buttonhole any Genext transporter with a sizeable fleet or the new age heroes para dropped from the precincts of IIMs/IITs and enquire their USP. Technology, it will be.  They track everything: driving behavior, the number of times he applied the brake, over-speeding, fuel consumption, halting frequency, etc., courtesy of the Global Positioning System or GPS. If the driver works for high-intensive safety shippers - the likes of Castrol, Shell, Linde/Praxair, etc - the in-cabin camera will capture his every single move. Real-time, being watched from a remote control tower. Welcome measures from every perceivable angle. 

All these initiatives are to ensure logistical efficiency through external monitoring. How about looking inward for a change using the same technology? I am talking about real-time monitoring of driver health. How about using wearable devices that are no longer a novelty? 

Drivers, wearing one of these devices, can automatically transmit data in real-time and automatically about their blood pressure, body temperature, eye movement, breathing problems, etc to the remote control tower.  Inadequately ventilated and un-ergonomically designed driver cabins increase fatigue, a key factor leading to accidents and fatalities on highways. In India, it is hot all the time. Temperatures hovering above 40 plus outside. Add the heat emanating from the engine inside the cabin. These inconveniences drivers and results in fatigue. The remedy is simple and readily available and stakeholders "love" embracing technology. Doable and affordable. 

What about drivers' resistance to such real-time monitoring? A decade ago, GPS is viewed as an "invasion of privacy" by the driver community and fleet owners felt GPS was an additional cost, not realizing better turnaround time or less idling, stopping fuel theft, etc. It was truly a strategic investment. GPS has become a norm once shippers played a nice game: favoring GPS-fitted vehicles. Fleet owners, needless to say, fell in line without a murmur. Perhaps it is time for shippers to repeat that model. Ready, shippers? 

Mumbai-based Bhavesh Solanki concurs that getting the buy-in of drivers is a challenge. However, he has managed to sell his IFreightBox software solution to fleet owners at home and abroad. His two-year-old company has entered the markets in Mexico and Germany. He disagrees with the notion that it was the "cost factor" that fetched him orders. "Not at all. Our solution was more user-friendly and accessible on all types of devices," adds he.  

IFreightbox, Solanki concedes, has not given thought to incorporate the health parameters of truck drivers in his solution so far. "It is a nice idea. I shall look into it," adds he. This should not be a challenge in the nation of cyber warriors that caters to the global market. Is it too much to ask these IIM/IIT alumni-bred startups to generate a few more lines of code in whichever language they are proficient to enhance driver health? This extra feature will have a positive feedback from fleet owners and shippers  because their prime concern of cargo and vehicle safety is addressed. Self interest, no doubt.