Tags: transportation
Tags: transportation
November 14, 2008
On October 10 after nearly 24 hours of travel involving a taxi to catch a SEPTA train to transfer to a NJ Transit train to catch a plane at Newark Liberty to go to Frankfurt to Zurich, I arrived in Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport just before 1:00 a.m. While one of my goals for my vacation was to get away from the things I usually think about everyday, it was hard to escape two topics I spend a lot of time talking about at home -- the U.S. Presidential election and transportation.
At the
Economy League, we like to talk about multi-modal transportation, but our
definition is nowhere as creative as what I experienced in India. In just 2.5
weeks, I traveled by plane, train, bicycle rickshaw, bicycle, motor boat, car,
truck, jeep, bus, raft, foot, and tuk tuk. And I missed out on a couple of
other means of transport-camel and donkey drawn carts, horses, and elephants. 
In 1924, E.M. Forster wrote of India, "Adventures do occur, but not punctually." In most circumstances, Forster's sentiment was as true today in as it was when he penned A Passage to India. Besides the Delhi Metro, there's only one other exception: the tuk tuk.
Tuk tuks are everywhere in India-from the big cities like Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur to small towns like Mandawar (pop. ~10,000). If you've never heard the term before, tuk tuks are auto-rickshaws, the three-wheeled, motorized vehicles that are used across Asia and in some parts of South America in the stead of taxis.
Tuk tuks are an effective form of transportation for a couple of reasons. Because traffic on most Indian roads is quite dense and diverse (people, animals, bicycles, rickshaws, tuk tuks, cars, trucks, and buses all share the road of the cities and countryside) a tuk tuk's average speed of between 35 mph is plenty to keep up with flow, while its compact size and agility makes it an efficient way to get from point A to point B.
Also, they are cheap. I don't think I ever paid more than 100 rupees (about $2) for a tuk tuk ride, and it was that expensive only when we were covering a significant distance. And I was never traveling alone-my companions and I pretty much crammed as many people into a tuk tuk as possible without any repercussions (3 to 6 people depending on the model).
Finally, in many parts of India tuk tuks are mandated to run on compressed natural gas -- a cheaper, more environmentally friendly fuel than gasoline or diesel. Even when run on petroleum, tuk tuks have much higher fuel efficiency than cars-estimated at between 55-82 miles per gallon.
Tuk tuks got
me thinking about my recent visit to Metro Atlanta on the 2008 Greater Philadelphia Leadership
Exchange, where Ken Steele,
the mayor of Fayetteville, GA, told the participants about his town's extensive
use of golf carts. Is there an opportunity to put the efficient, inexpensive
(between $5000-$9000 in the U.S.), low eco impact tuk tuk to use in
Philadelphia?
For example, Center City's narrow streets and compact development are the right scale for tuk tuks to be as successful as taxis, maintenance vehicles, local delivery vehicles, and a new generation of food carts. And even though they aren't heated, given the short distances that the tuk tuks are designed to travel, that doesn't seem like it should be a big issue.
Philly has been creative and forward-thinking about mobility. Tuk tuks would add another choice. Faster than walking, more direct than the bus or subway, easier than a bike for transporting purchases, cheaper than taxis, and better for spontaneous needs than car sharing -- let's consider the tuk tuk!
--Alison Gold, Deputy Director for Strategy & Operations
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