Transport Corporation Of India LTD., India's largest integrated logistics transportation organization has come up with Indian Road Freight Index (RFI) This is unique information module providing an index of weighted average lorry freight rates across various routes, creating history in Indian Transportation Industry. It's unmatched qualities are in no way less than our stock market index.

INDIAN ROAD FREIGHT INDEX

Indian Road Freight Index (RFI) The first of its kind in the world is an index of weighted average lorry freight rates across various routes, similar to that of stock market index. Indian Road Freight Index (RFI ) is the index of the freight rates movement calculated based on the route density and the dynamic freight rates of the top 50 routes selected across the country. The index varies directly with the movement of the freight rates and the routes density of the major routes selected across the country .

How Indian Road Freight Index is Calculated

The Indian Road Freight Index (RFI) index is compared weekly by experienced panelists who make an assessment of the freight that would be paid on that day. They estimate the current market levels for the component routes. Once all the estimated numbers are received, the panelists remove the highest and lowest numbers and then average the reset. Once the components numbers are tabulated, the panelists then weight the numbers and compile the Indian Road Freight Index (RFI) for that day .

Why Road Freight Index (RFI) is needed

In the existing overland lorry freight industry, which is dominated by small regional operators, the freight rates are very dynamic and very sensitive to issues such as oil price hike, off-loading of a major shipment at a local port, or the railway station No studies have been carried out on rates structure and there are no databases available on the rates and volume of material transported through each routes. It is therefore very difficult to predict the on-going trend in freight rates, the emerging trend in lorry availability for a given period. Lack of such comprehensive data often results in wide fluctuations of freight rates, over reaction of Market on Oil price Hike, seasonal Fluctuations thereby leading to non-optimization of the freight space .

Advantages of Indian Road Freight Index (RFI)

 The Indian Road Freight Index (RFI) is a tool, which helps to make comprehensive analysis of freight trends, route wise and date wise and helps to forecast the freight trends and freight rates .
 The immediate impact of seasonal, regulatory changes can be predicted viewing the previous trends.
 Freight rates of each route will provide the rates of that route over a period of time thereby making it easy to analyze the market fluctuations route-wise and predict the freight rates for quoting the rates.
 The Freight rates for the major routes selected across the country will be easily available so that the user can decide the movement of the freight lorries and optimize profits .
 The Financial Institutions may use Indian Road Freight Index (RFI) to monitor their NPA's.