Recognising the importance of promoting green entrepreneurship in the auto-rickshaw sector in Indian cities, Rickshaw Rising will serve as a platform for discussion between entrepreneurs, investors, experts, regulators and decision-makers on the challenges and opportunities in promoting green entrepreneurs, forging future partnerships between investors and entrepreneurs, and enabling a conducive regulatory and policy environment to initiate and scale-up such services. This can achieve triple-bottom-line benefits in this important urban sector in Indian cities.
The Opportunity
Auto-rickshaw services in Indian cities are predominantly unorganised. Services are provided by individual owners or operators competing against each other for the passenger market. This structure, coupled with inadequate governance, has created significant problems for drivers and passengers. This has resulted in negative economic, environmental and social impressions. Given that the unorganised structure is a major contributor to the problems afflicting this sector, the opportunity to address these problems lie in the promotion of organised fleet services.
Fleet-based auto-rickshaw services can bring notable benefits such as:
•Brand image
•Fleet management
•Dial-A-Rickshw (DAR) services
•Operational efficiencies
•Employment benefits to drivers
Way Forward
Considering the size of the auto-rickshaw market in Indian cities, scaling-up of entrepreneur-driven fleet auto-rickshaw services would realise its potential and bring positive change to the sector. In addition, the green (social and environmental) benefits of fleet services provide big opportunities to attract social investors.
•Environmental benefits: Fleet-based DAR services can help mitigate environmental impacts of auto-rickshaws through improvements in operational efficiencies (reduction of avoidable emissions from empty trips by linking supply to demand) and fleet maintenance programs.
•Social benefits for auto-rickshaw drivers: Provision of fleet-based DAR services can improve the socio-economic condition of drivers by providing them with access to employment benefits, and additional revenue sources such as advertising.
•Social benefits for passengers: Social equity by way of accessible and affordable transportation choices for elderly, women, disabled, and children is a core aspect of promoting sustainable transport services. Fleet DAR services can help meet this goal by providing household access to auto-rickshaws through centralized calling facilities.