PLANNING FOR FREIGHT LOGISTICS MECHANISM AND TRANSPORTATION PLANNING SYSTEM FOR WHOLESALE COMMERCIAL AREA OF AMRITSAR CITY

Abstract

Freight logistic transport is the physical process of transportation of commodities, merchandise goods and cargo. Freight is directly linked with the “Supply Chain Management†of the goods or freight logistics mechanism. In India domestic and national transport of goods rely on surface transport particularly domestic goods are carried through roads only by using light commercial vehicles, such as single unit trucks, mini trucks, auto-rickshaw, cycle rickshaw and man pulled vehicles. The primary reason being the structure of the settlement, network pattern and lack of infrastructure facilities like warehousing, parking facilities, terminals and loading/unloading points to support freight movements.

Amritsar, the city of Golden Temple, symbolizes the spiritual heritage of Punjab. The Walled City, Amritsar is the central business district of the city having many wholesale specialized bazaars with lot of problems regarding loading/unloading, mixing with local traffic etc1 which makes movement inconvenient for the passenger as well as freight traffic. Amritsar also act as the mandi town such as Vallah vegetable mandi and Bhagtawala as a grain mandi. Freight transportation is the integral part for the efficiency of freight movement because it is totally dependent on nodes i.e. trade centers, networks i.e. roads, terminals i.e. airport, railway terminals, truck terminal and transport nagar.

This paper will focus on identifying the problems and issues concerning freight generation areas of wholesale commercial activities at city and site levels with a view to provide integrated and sustainable freight transport options. Freight transport solution shall be proposed in the light of objectives i.e. safety, reliability and management in which connectivity of existing terminals shall be considered to boost “supply chain management†approach. Transport facilities shall be proposed for proper storage, loading/unloading, parking facilities for efficient movements of the goods in the city.