Too many rickshaws, too few passengers

Shazedul Islam, a 31-year-old rickshaw puller from Mohammadpur, previously worked as a salesman for a private company before switching to driving a battery-powered rickshaw.

"As a salesman, I used to earn Tk16,000 a month. After paying house rent, I had little to nothing left to get by," he said. "I saw auto-rickshaw drivers earning almost twice my salary."

This shift is becoming increasingly common. As entry-level salaries in the formal sector stagnate, more people are leaving salaried work and turning to rickshaw driving. With minimal training requirements and low upfront costs, it has become one of the easiest fallback occupations for displaced or low-paid workers.

Although in legal limbo, battery-powered auto-rickshaws now dominate Dhaka's roads. Traditional pedal rickshaws have largely disappeared, replaced by battery-run ones that require far less physical effort to operate.

With weak enforcement and informal barriers reduced, the number of battery-powered rickshaws has continued to rise sharply. From an estimated 200,000 vehicles in 2016, their number is now believed to have crossed four million.

But this raises a question: Are there enough passengers for this growing number of autorickshaws?

The answer is apparently no. As a result, an imbalance in supply and demand has emerged — while the number of battery-powered rickshaws has increased rapidly, passenger demand has remained largely unchanged.

Naturally, this causes lower income on average for each rickshaw driver.

For Mohammad Shabuz, a rickshaw driver in the Shahbagh area, the surge in numbers has sharply reduced earnings. "Earlier, I could make around Tk40,000 a month," he said. "Now, with so many rickshaws on the road, it has fallen to nearly half."

Rickshaw drivers interviewed across Mohammadpur, Mirpur, and Shyamoli reported similar declines in daily income.

The government, meanwhile, remains divided over how to deal with battery-powered rickshaws. While the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has clear regulations for pedal rickshaws and CNG-run auto-rickshaws, battery-powered vehicles fall outside the formal system, as they are not officially recognised. As a result, no specific rules govern their manufacture or operation.

This regulatory gap has allowed them to spread rapidly across Dhaka, many built in informal garages without basic safety standards. Repeated attempts by the government to remove them from the roads have failed. Each time a ban was imposed, large-scale protests by drivers followed, forcing authorities to withdraw the measures and leaving the sector largely unregulated.

After 5 August 2024, informal protection rackets that had long extorted rickshaw pullers have largely disappeared, further lowering barriers to entry.

"The previous regime was harsher on autorickshaws than the current one," said a battery-run rickshaw puller in Beribadh. "Local party members used to charge us regularly. We were only allowed to operate if we paid them. On a good day, if I earned Tk1,500, they would take Tk500."

Apart from driver's income, the expansion of auto-rickshaws has come with other costs too.

Safety concern and environmental toll

Most e-rickshaws are driven by operators with no formal training, while the vehicles themselves are manufactured without basic safety features. As a result, battery-powered rickshaws are particularly prone to accidents.

BRTA data shows that road accidents claimed 3,741 lives between January and August last year. Passengers of three-wheeled vehicles accounted for roughly 21% of these fatalities.

Beyond road safety, e-rickshaws also pose serious environmental and public health risks. Most operate using lead-acid batteries. Once these batteries reach the end of their lifespan, they are often dismantled and melted down by unlicensed recyclers, releasing toxic lead fumes into the environment. 

This has intensified Bangladesh's already severe lead poisoning crisis. UNICEF estimates that around 35 million Bangladeshi children have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.

The way forward

Despite these risks, why has the government failed to impose an outright ban?

The short answer is structural dependence. Dhaka's transport system relies heavily on three-wheelers. While buses and metro services can operate on highways and major corridors, much of the city consists of narrow, two-lane streets where large public transport vehicles cannot function. In these areas, two- and three-wheelers remain the only viable means of mobility.

According to Shamsul Haque, director of the Accident Research Institute (ARI) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), the most immediate solution lies in strengthening public transport while regulating rickshaws through area-based controls.

"In residential zones such as Bashundhara, Baridhara, or cantonment areas, rickshaws were not banned outright. Their numbers were capped and their movement regulated," he mentioned.

If buses fail to become the backbone of Dhaka's transport system, the problem will persist, he argued. 

"People do not use metro systems merely because trains exist, but because they are reliable. If buses can offer the same reliability, commuters will shift naturally. Globally, buses form the foundation of public transport networks."

"On roads designated for buses, there must be zero tolerance for small vehicles, defined through clear parameters. Complete exclusion is necessary," he said.

For the long term, Professor Haque proposed monorails as a solution for dense and unplanned urban areas.

"Monorails can bend, adapt, and pass through dense urban fabric. In cities like Chongqing, transit systems even run through buildings," he said.

Such systems, he added, could help integrate unplanned areas into the urban economy. 

"But on major corridors, there is no alternative to buses. Once bus lanes are reclaimed, a single bus can absorb the demand currently served by 100 easybikes, while offering reliability. If rickshaws dominate instead, buses will inevitably become unpopular."