A study on Commercial Truck Driver’s Vulnerability in India – Mitigations and Strategies for enrichment of Truck Drivers lifestyle By Dr. P. Senthilkumar* and N. Rajkumar Abstract

In recent advancement of technology in transportation engineering, had made the world shrunk where everything and anything can be reached in a shorter turnaround time. This is the fact as everyone can experience that the Indian roadways infrastructure has improved significantly. In this world there is hardly anything which does not involve transportation to reach us, like food grains, fruits, meat, fishes and other finished items. These are being transported through trucks and truck drivers have a major role to play in it. With 6 million truck drivers in India, the trucking industry represents a notable proportion of the labour force (2.5 percent).

It is generally the drop outs from Schools or from the poor families join this profession primarily as a Cleaner and later learn driving to be called as truck driver. However these truck drivers lead a very miserable life. The majority of drivers do not own the truck, they work "on their own" or in an autonomous way on an average of 12.7 hours per day, which has important implications for health and quality of life. They are underpaid and don’t have any proper time for their food and sleep/ rest. These truck drivers are highly dependent on the road side eateries. They drive 400 to 600 Kms per day even taking risk at times with overloaded trucks and poor maintenance of the trucks. The truck drivers are conditioned for external drug stimulant to stay awake for longer journey. The truck drivers’ engage in high risk sexual behaviours making them vulnerable to Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD). They are twice as likely to acquire the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and also serve as bridge population linking with the general population.

As we are dependent on these truck drivers for our daily needs, it is the responsibility of the Government and automobile industries as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to create a safer and decent working environment and a social enhancement for the truck driver’s lifestyle in India. Keeping all the above as the context a detailed survey has been done to depict the vulnerable lifestyle of the Indian Truck Drivers. Based on the outcome of the survey various rehabilitation strategies and welfare measures for these truck drivers both in terms of job and infrastructure are being presented in this paper.

This survey paper focuses on vulnerable jobs of the Indian Commercial truck drivers.

In this survey actually 106 commercial truck drivers were interviewed. These truck drivers travel an average of about 500 kms max per day. The survey was conducted in 4 locations of India and almost all state drivers equally participated in this survey. This survey was formulated with 33 questions which comprises of personnel data, environmental factors, safety, awareness on sexually transmitted disease, government regulations. Most importantly this paper focuses on the lifestyle of the truck drivers and factors which influence them. Some of the questions were added are about Sexually transmitted diseases and its awareness. Others may be surprised why these questions are being asked to a truck driver. The reason behind this is, truck drivers are in to high mobility on major part of the day and they are away from their families and the truck drivers are spending most of the times in loading and unloading at the docks and there they find an opportunity to get involved among the arrangement groups of prostitutes to quench their personnel likings. Also majority of the truck drivers are prone to high stimulation inhalation of drugs as they have to cover across boundaries carrying tonnes of goods worth lakhs and crores. This is influences the health condition of the truck drivers which deteriorates as time passes.

The Indian trucking sector contributes about 4.5-5 per cent (USD 55-60 billion) of the GDP. However, the sector is plagued the paucity of good-quality highways and expressways. While road freight volumes increased at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.06 per cent and the number of vehicles (all types) on Indian roads increased at a CAGR of 10.13 per cent during the period 1950 -1951/2007-2008, the GDP at market price grew at a CAGR of only 7.35 per cent during the same period, indicating that road freight volumes and the number of vehicles (all types) grew at faster rates compared to the GDP during this period. The total length of roads, on the other hand, increased at a CAGR of only 3.77 per cent during the period 1950- 1951/2007-2008, implying thereby that the growth in roads has not been able to keep pace with the growths in road freight volumes and the number of vehicles (all types) on Indian roads during the same period.

Currently in India 3 million truck drivers are employed for medium and heavy commercial vehicles for the seamless logistics operation throughout India. Some of the Major commercial vehicle manufacturers in India are Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Eicher Motors. As the competition grew in India among the commercial vehicles, new companies such as Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, Mahindra Trucks, Volvo Commercial Vehicles, Man Trucks, AMW, Force Motors are added to India’s Stable and this is a sure case that the trucking industry in India is growing rapidly.

Now it is left to the commercial vehicle manufacturers to define whether they will be able to help the truck drivers to reduce their day to day difficulties and provide effective remedies with the rapid changing environment. At the industry level, the logistics focus is moving towards reducing cycle times in order to add value to their customers. In order to meet the shortest cycle times, the truck drivers are put on strenuous efforts to deliver the goods at a faster pace and in parallel the consequences in terms risk behaviour faced by the truck drivers are not known to the surface level.

At present the trucking industry faces acute shortage of drivers. As a result the truck industry, which is the backbone of the transport sector and the economy, is in dire straits. There is enough cargo to carry but shortage of drivers has dealt a blow to this hugely unorganised industry, which mainly consists of single vehicle operators.

The truck industry is willing to pay higher salaries to drivers but there are no takers due to harsh working conditions. Often drivers are forced to be behind the wheels for over 15 hours a day as against the mandated 8 hours. There is a stigma in the society towards truck drivers. While bus and taxi drivers command respect in the society, truck drivers do not. In addition, in the past cleaners graduated to become drivers, today no one wants to become a cleaner either.

The main objective of this paper is to,

1. 
   Identify the lifestyle of the truck driver’s and factors which influence them.
   
2. 
   To formulate appropriate strategies for mitigation and enriching the lifestyle of the truck driver’s.
   

In this survey paper, a specifically developed questionnaire was developed considering the factors like personnel data, environmental factors, safety, awareness on sexually transmitted disease, government regulations.

Interview schedule was planned in 4 locations of India especially in New Delhi, Gujarat, Kolkata and Chennai. The survey was done using event sampling where the truck drivers were passing by the toll plazas, Near Ports etc.

By using Chi-Square test and ANOVA important factors affecting the truck driver’s lifestyles were tested and solution were proposed with strategies and how to mitigate to enrich the truck driver lifestyle

The sample size taken for this survey is 106 commercial truck drivers from 4 locations of India. The survey questionnaire was formulated in such a way to cover all aspects of the truck driver lifestyle which influences him in his day to day activity.

The Survey started with the general introduction and the purpose of the survey was explained upfront to the truck driver. It is observed that major of the truck drivers interviewed were under the age band of 25 years to 40 years and to be specific the majority of the drivers were close to 40 years band. The age distribution of the truck drivers are presented in table 1.

Table 1: Age Profile			Table 2: Geographical Location
Age Interval	Percentage		Location	Percentage
< 25 Years	9%		North	19%
25 Years to 40 years	39%		East	29%
41 Years to 60 Years	28%		South	37%
>60 Years	24%		West	15%
Total	100%		Total	100%

The Marital status data of the truck driver is presented in the table 3. The findings also shows majority of the truck drivers are married. The gap between the unmarried and widower is negligence. We could also interview some of the drivers who got divorced because of their illegal affair with other women.

Education levels of the truck drivers were taken as important factor and it is presented in Table 4. This was considered in order to co-relate with other associated factors which will be presented in the later part of the paper. The distribution shows that 27% of the sample population were below 10^th standard and on the other hand it is surprising that 28% were found to be graduates and all these 28% of the sample population got graduated majorly through distance education and few of them were cleaner turned drivers.

Table 3: Marital Status			Table 4: Education Level
Marital Status	Percentage		Education Level	Percentage
Married	31%		Below 10th Std	27%
Unmarried	27%		10th Std	28%
Widower	26%		12th Std	17%
Divorce	16%		Graduate	28%
Total	100%		Total	100%