The Transportation Group - Workshop on Design for Sustainability

INTRODUCTION
We a group of five people were allotted the sector of transportation, how to make transportation of freights via trucks more sustainable in the current scenario.

Dhruv Kohli, Shivani Holkar

We are undergraduate and postgraduate students at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati.

DAY-01
It started of with literature research, a bit of digging into the existing data/statistics of different ways in which goods are transported in India, how the transportation through the truck system works etc. Through this we were able to analyse and quantify the working of the whole system.
 
DAY-02
Moving on we mapped out the whole system journey starting from receiving a consignment from a transporter to delivery of the goods by the truck driver. Mapping different stake holders (brokers, companies, government authorities) etc, and the corresponding transactions between them be it in the form of money or information. From the following activity, we were able to identify, various stakeholders and the way in which they contribute to the existing system.

DAY-03
Now, we listed down various problems faced by the all these agents at different points in the system and classified those problems on the basis of social, economic and cultural (pillars of sustainability) background . After listing down all the problems in those three different domains we came to a conclusion to evolve the existing system around the truck driver and his whole journey from receiving the consignment to delivering the same, and in the process satisfy the existing needs of the various agents involved in the process.
 
DAY-04
We had a short discussion with the faculty-in-charge on the progress we had made. They were quite satisfied with the way we were catching up with the pace of the intention of workshop. The professors also suggested us to delve more into the topic for better understanding and they also paved a way for us to reach into a solution without getting lost in the midway. Keeping that in our mind, we again started refining the entire process. Re-mapping started again, information kept on hurling among us as hours passed by. Once the mapping was over, the next challenge which stood tall ahead of us was the sustainable solution which we had to frame.
 
DAY-05
We started putting forth sustainable solution for each problematic domain. The map which we drew initially for the existing freight management in India gradually started sloping into a sustainable freighting system. In order to familiarize ourselves, we did a SWOT analysis and a couple of additional brainstorming sessions. On the final day of workshop with the solution in our hand, we felt a bit confident and aroused to share the solution which we casted for the freight management system in India. Faculties-in-charge of the workshop was very much satisfied with the effort we had taken and they were quite impressed by the path we have followed for achieving the target which they laid for us. They also gave us additional tips and other interventions which we unintentionally left out. Finally, the 5-day sustainability workshop ended with a handful of info in hand, smiling face and a with a sense of completeness.