Amazon India, Railways tie up on transport of e-commerce packages

Amazon India on Wednesday announced that it has partnered with the Indian Railways for a pilot programme to carry out inter-city transport of e-commerce packages.

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Amazon India would transport customer packages with the Railways on three routes from New Delhi to Mumbai, Mumbai to New Delhi, and New Delhi to Kolkata, the company said in a press release. The partnership is the first in the e-commerce industry to enable the Railways build an e-commerce product for freight transport via rail, the release said.

E-commerce transportation product

The company has seen improvement in speed for ground transportation of its packages and increased reliability for packages transported through the railways network, it said. With the initial learnings, Amazon India is working with the Railways to build an e-commerce transportation product that would enhance capacity planning, contract payment methods, infrastructure and security of freight movement via the rail network, the release said.

"The reach and speed of the Indian Railways will further help us fulfill customer orders faster and reliably across the country," Amazon India director (Middle Mile Transportation) Abhinav Singh said. "We are committed to a long-term partnership with the Indian Railways, and are excited to partner with them to build freight movement solutions for thee-commerce industry, leveraging the vast railways network,based on the learnings from our pilot programme," he said.

Amazon India would continue to partner and create more opportunities to leverage the infrastructure built by the Railways, the release said.

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