Cycle rickshaw

Thousands of pedicabs today operate on streets in locales including Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Austin, Texas; Manhattan, New York; Chicago, Illinois; San Diego and San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Miami, Florida; Washington, D.C.; Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; Nashville, Tennessee; Phoenix, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and dozens of other hot spots.

They are mostly convertible, decorated,[19] rickshaws with folding hoods and are the only kind of vehicles that can be driven in many neighbourhoods of the city with narrow streets and lanes.

Because of inflation and unemployment in the rural areas, people from villages crowd in the cities to become rickshaw drivers locally called the riksha-wala (রিকশাওয়ালা).

[20] Whilst many local tourism authorities still issue licences for rickshaw drivers to carry passengers, authorities in China are tightening rules in order to alleviate cheating of tourists and to reduce traffic congestion (e.g. a typical Chinese cycle-rickshaw will travel at less than 10 ⁠km/h⁠ and is wide enough to fill an entire motor or bicycle lane and therefore are blamed as a major cause of traffic congestion), and have been banned in many cities already.

[21] The first attempt of improving the existing cycle rickshaws and then converting them to electric ones was done by the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in the late 1990s.

[2][32] However, in September 2010 it was reported that no Soleckshaws had been sold on a commercial basis, and the approximately 30 demonstration units, initially deployed in Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dhanbad, Durgapur, Jaipur, and Kolkata, were "not in operation due to various local administrative and management problems", and the charging stations "are not being used at this point of time as the vehicles are not in operation at those locations".

Scenes of the anti-becak campaign appear in the 1971 Canadian film Wet Earth and Warm People, a documentary by Michael Rubbo.

Since then, rapid urbanisation has increased demand for more efficient public transport, resulting in dwindling cycle rickshaw numbers.

[citation needed] In Myanmar, cycle rickshaws or trishaws (Burmese: ဆိုက်ကား, romanized: saik kar, directly pronounced as in the English word 'side car') came first into wide use in 1938, when the 1300 Revolution, which originated from the Chauk oil-field strike, inspired the people in Mandalay to have a consciousness of nationalism and to boycott British goods and services.

The auto body technician Saya Nyo built the first trishaw in Mandalay by attaching a side-car to the side of an old bicycle.

However, in Hilly regions of Nepal, cycle rickshaws are primarily used to attract tourists who can relax and travel around the popular streets and markets at reasonable fares.

They are used mainly to ferry passengers short distances along smaller, more residential streets, often to or from jeepneys or other public utility vehicles.

[citation needed] The Korean term for Cycle Rickshaw is illyeokgeo (인력거), which can be pedal- or motor-powered, though most in South Korea are electric.

While not commonly used as a primary mode of transportation, cycle rickshaws can still be found in certain areas like Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, where they operate mainly for tourism purposes.

[citation needed] Cycle rickshaws are known as xích lô (pronounced sick-low, from the French cyclo) in Vietnam.

[45] Another similar vehicle, a pedicab called xe lôi of the Mekong Delta, are now rarely found in some provinces such as Sóc Trăng, Vĩnh Long, and Châu Đốc.

[48] Lake Constance,[48] Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden, and Hamburg offer cycle rickshaw, also called pedicab, service.

[citation needed] Berlin's Senate, police, and taxi associations finally agreed that the "cult-flitzer" could be integrated into the city's traffic flow.

As with a few recumbent and semi-recumbent designs, some drivers may suffer with knee and joint pain due to the weight of the vehicle (145 kg).

[48][52] Thomas Lundy of Amsterdam adapted his battery-electric assisted cycle rickshaw to become what he terms "semi-solar powered", resulting in a video report on Reuters.

[55] Cycle rickshaws operate in central London, including Soho,[17] Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Covent Garden.

In 2024, Transport for London was given powers to regulate pedicabs, including fare control, vehicle standards and driver licensing.

In many Asian cities where they are widely used, cycle rickshaw driving provides essential employment for recent immigrants from rural areas, generally impoverished men.

One study in Bangladesh showed that cycle rickshaw driving was connected with some increases in income for poor agricultural labourers who moved to urban areas, but that the extreme physical demands of the job meant that these benefits decreased for long-term drivers.

[60] These wages, while widely considered very low for such physically demanding work, do in some situations compare favourably to jobs available to unskilled workers.

[61] In 2012 Ole Kassow, a resident of Copenhagen, wanted to help the elderly get back on their bicycles, but he had to find a solution to their limited mobility.

[citation needed] In Dhaka and Jakarta, they are no longer permitted on major roads, but are still used to provide transportation within individual urban neighbourhoods.

As Taiwanese road traffic is now heavily motorised, most pedicabs have been replaced by taxicabs, but they can still be found at limited places, such as Cijin District of Kaohsiung City.

[citation needed] As a key part of the urban landscape in many cities, cycle rickshaws have been the subject of films and other artwork, as well as being extensively decorated themselves.

Cyclo, a 1995 film by Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung, is centered on a cycle rickshaw driver.