[sustran] Re: Information on 'Bike Taxi'

[Jonathan E. D. Richmond]

It is a mistake to assume that official public transport will necessarily
result in the consumption of less fuel than motorbike taxis or that it can
replace them in many instances. A bike operating on demand in a suburban
area can be considerably more efficient than buses circulating most of the
day almost empty.

In fact, many motorbike services do operate as public transport --
charging about the same fare but providing a level of frequency not
possible with buses. For low-income people living in outlying suburbs,
there may be no alternative if density is inufficient for more formal
operations -- in fact, in many cases, the bikes actually operate from bus
stops and provide services to locations not served by buses.

So we have to be careful about making generalizations.

Note that in my case the alternative to taking a motorbike, which I
frequently use to complete a journey after a bus or train ride, would be
to take a regular taxi for the whole journey as it would simply take too
long otherwise.

                                            --jonathan

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Jonathan E. D. Richmond                               02 524-5510 (office)
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