Starter Kit. Idea 434 of 500. Cluster 22
Backhaul matching, so a lorry that delivers to a district town carries the district's goods back instead of returning empty
The mechanism, from the book
The village cannot get a box to the container port. The gap is small firms, not big ones.
The first step
Spend a week at the market or a wholesale yard in one district town and ask the lorry drivers where they came from, what they unloaded and whether they go back empty. Then ask 5 producers in the town what they send to Colombo and how. Match one empty lorry with one producer's load for a fee, and record what each side saved. Both sides asking you for the next match is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A lorry owner who would rather carry a paying load home than drive back empty, and a district producer who wants cheaper freight to Colombo.
- What leaves today
- Lorries return empty while district goods wait or go through middlemen; one match fills the lorry and gets the box to the port.
Ask first
- National Transport Commission. Ask whether a lorry carrying goods for several senders needs any extra permit.
- Department of Motor Traffic. Ask what a goods vehicle must carry to show it is licensed for hire.
Check before you spend
That the lorry owner may carry goods for others, insurance for the load on the return trip, and a written note of who pays if goods are damaged.
Find out these three numbers
- How many lorries leave the district town empty each week?
- What would a district seller pay to send goods back on one?
- What fee would a lorry owner accept for the return load?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.