Written by Tu My Tran, Senior Officer for Sustainable Mobility at ICLEI World Secretariat, based on the analysis by Ashish Rao Ghorpade and Vijay Saini, ICLEI South Asia Secretariat.

In recent years, natural disasters have hit cities hard around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has however reached an unprecedented scale and the full impacts are still being assessed. Like never before, the crisis has unveiled how supply chains play a crucial role in responding to the disaster, essentially due to the scale and nature of today’s networked supply chains. The health emergency represents a sobering experience heightening the importance for cities to (1) adopt sustainable urban logistics planning and integrated approaches, (2) innovate through technology, and (3) strengthen partnerships. While these systemic practices are true for most cities around the world, this article will spotlight best practices from India, where the largest preemptive country-wide lockdown was enforced on 24 March, restricting movement for 1.3 billion people and disrupting supply chains. Particularly, operations of the trucking industry were affected, which alone directly employs 30 million people, and sustains the livelihood of more than 150 million people.

Adopting sustainable urban logistics planning and integrated approaches

During the current health emergency, city leadership and actions have been crucial in ensuring a smooth supply of essential goods like groceries and medical supplies. Cities such as Ahmedabad, Chennai, Indore, Kochi, Nagpur, Pune, Shimla, Surat, and many more, are facilitating essential deliveries.

Remarkably, the Uttar Pradesh government has deployed more than 40,000 motorized vans and manual carts for doorstep delivery of fruits and vegetables.
Supply chains go beyond the city borders calling for multi-level coordination and collective actions. In the initial stages of the lockdown, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of India coordinated all the ministries and departments of the national government, state governments, and cities (Union Territory authorities) to take suitable measures to ensure a sustainable supply of essential goods during the entire duration of the lockdown. This coordination helped address initial operational hurdles and facilitated the swift movement of essential goods including groceries and hygiene products across regions within the country.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance for cities to formulate an action plan for sustainable urban logistics management, which needs to be integrated within existing urban development and transport policies and consider resilience guidelines. These plans can help with strategic and tactical preparedness, operational collaboration, and multi-governance alignment during a crisis. ICLEI’s EcoLogistics project is assisting the Indian cities Kochi, Panaji, and Shimla to draw up an urban freight baseline. They are in the process of crafting low-carbon action plans for urban freight, supporting the implementation of demonstration projects in cities, and highlighting national Ecologistics policy recommendations. Moving forward, these recommendations are expected to address imbalances in the supply and demand networks thus minimize future disruptions in supply chains and freight transport, as well as enhance public-private synchronization and above all improve coherence between national and subnational government policies.

Innovating through technology
Cities are also playing a crucial role in ensuring reliable last-mile delivery of essential goods through innovative approaches. Localizing the supply chain, when possible, and ensuring delivery is critical especially in densely populated urban areas, including vulnerable communities, where keeping physical distancing is challenging. Various cities have launched mobile grocery and vegetable vans and partially digitalized their operations. Orders are placed online or in collaboration with platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy. Moreover, businesses such as e-commerce companies, mobile wallet apps, social commerce platforms, and real estate-rental portals, promptly pivoted their businesses to groceries and partnered with local kirana stores.

Innovative approaches can also be low tech and stem from adaptability and creativity, repurposing business operations, and under-utilized fleets. Cities such as Indore and Bhopal are partnering with NGOs to use the urban waste management system for goods delivery. The Indore Municipal Corporation has arranged private vehicles, for shops that do not have delivery vehicles, temporarily repurposing passenger auto-rickshaws, whose operations have been suspended due to the pandemic. Innovations have been quick to implement and are highly responsive to shifts in demand. While the outbreak might accelerate some innovations like digitalization and foster new hybrid online-offline business models, a systemic approach will be necessary to balance between cities priority to reduce emissions and traffic congestion, and need to minimize disruptions to current supply chains and business models while catering for the soaring demand for delivered goods. Mapping the supply chain and addressing the data gap are key challenges for cities towards informed and evidence-based policies able to increase resilience and align economic, environmental, and social priorities.

Strengthening partnerships through collective actions and stakeholder engagement.

The pandemic is affecting urban supply chains in urban areas in similar ways, highlighting the importance of city networks like ICLEI and forward-thinking projects like EcoLogistics, which connect cities and support their efforts. Common challenges call for similar solutions. For instance, the supply chain disruptions of fresh produce can be observed not only in India but also in South East Asia and South America. Government-led initiatives such as vegetable markets on wheels deployed in many Indian cities have also been adopted by cities in the Philippines. Through the EcoLogistics project Kochi, Panaji, and Shimla constituted multi-stakeholder committees, which include representatives from government agencies, along with civil society organizations and professional associations and unions, and local business representatives. These committees have facilitated the coordination with stakeholders involved in the supply of essential goods, improving the city’s capacity to take action. For instance, the Kochi Municipal Corporation, in partnership with Kudumbashree (State Poverty Eradication Mission of Government of Kerala), set up five community kitchen centers to distribute food to those stranded in the city, mainly migrant workers, destitute people, the elderly and those who are under home quarantine. While Panaji and Shimla coordinated with multiple stakeholders to ensure a smooth supply of essential items, setting up helplines, maintaining the stock of essential goods, temporarily repurposing passengers fleets for delivery goods.

Amidst the COVID-19 crises, cities have the opportunity to adopt critical approaches for the future of urban logistics and city-level recovery strategies to address the fragility of urban logistics. Together, local and national governments, along with businesses and civil society organizations, can build sound and more resilient supply chains for healthier and more inclusive societies.

ICLEI South Asia Secretariat authored a report on Multiple Stakeholders Help Indian Cities to Put Supply Chain of Essential Goods Back on Track. It contains a detailed analysis of the national response, additional details on best practices including how the Indian Railways has played an essential role in maintaining the supply chain of essential goods between cities.

Additional readings

• Multiple stakeholders help Indian cities to put supply chain back on track (blogpost – report)
• COVID-19: Focus on cities and transport responses – India
• Tackling urban freight through collaborative action
• Restoring trust in public transport: the way forward