As per the Paris Agreement 2015, India committed to reduce its emissions intensity by 33-35% of the GDP by 2030. Decarbonizing the transport sector, especially freight transportation, will play a crucial role in its achievement.

Diesel based UF sector is highly dependent on imported POL. Reducing import dependency by enhancing domestic energy security is aligned to the Atmanirbhar (self-reliance) India. Additionally, high dependence on e-commerce during COVID is expected to grow multi-fold in the future, thereby increasing UF sector’s contribution in overall emissions. Given Maharashtra’s urbanization level of 45% as compared to India’s 31% (Census 2011), decarbonizing UF becomes critical. India, as part of the Electric Vehicle Initiative (EVI) under the global Clean Energy Ministerial, has set a target of 30% sales share for EVs by 2030. Transitioning to EVs could translate to savings of 846 million tonnes of net CO2 emissions over sold vehicles’ lifetime (RMI-NITI Aayog, 2019).

Increasing dependence on e-commerce, especially during COVID, has been a key feature of India’s urban landscape. As per TERI estimates, road transport accounts for ~90% of total CO2 emissions from freight transport, of which LCVs account for about 25%. Despite high carbon footprint, data and research on UF (such as vehicle population, trip lengths, load factor, fuel share, vehicle characteristics, low carbon alternatives) is extremely limited. Although there is some UF research in cities like Delhi, Surat, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai, the cities in Maharashtra lack robust research and business models for electrifying UF transport that can become a blueprint for post COVID city development.

The project aims to develop the financial and business models for charging infrastructure and EV adoption by cities along MSRDC owned highways for deploying the emerging EV technologies to replace diesel run Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs), based on the assessed potential of urban freight (UF) transport in select cities of Maharashtra.