PESHAWAR: Electric rickshaws are easy and fun to drive. They are smaller, featuring a cleaner design, with a power electrical motor enabling fast acceleration. It also ensures that the vehicle does not emit noise, smoke, or any hazardous gases.
These innovative rickshaws— also called E-Rickshaws— are the environmentally-friendly tri-wheeler solution for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's meandering roads. Their sleek bodies and pollution-free trails will be a welcome change to roads teeming with noisy, smoke-emitting auto-rickshaws. Once approved by KP's transport department, they will hit the streets of Peshawar, and eventually, to the rest of the province.
The new E-Rickshaws do not emit noise, smoke, or any hazardous gases. —Photo by the author
The World Health Organisation's (WHO) 2011 report ranked Peshawar the sixth most polluted city in the world. According to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), the average noise pollution (17 particles er million), far exceeds the permissible 9 PPM. In some spots, it is as much as 38 PPM.
Similarly, Peshawar's noise level is always above WHO’s limit of 85 decibels, confirms Pir Muhammad Zubair, who manages the provincial transport department's Vehicular Emission Testing Station (VETS).
Experts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are concerned about the dangerous pollution levels. They blame the run-down vehicles plying on Peshawar's streets, which emit poisonous gases like nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, smoke and hydrocarbons into the air, rendering it unfit for human consumption.
“The emission of air pollutants is directly related to consumption of petroleum products,” Zubair explains. Road transport, which relies on fuel, is responsible for 47.2 per cent of the country's total petroleum products, both locally-produced and imported.
However, while all vehicles consume fuel and pollute the air, tri-wheelers—with their jarring thuk-thuk sounds and high gas emissions—are particularly harmful to the environment.
Too many rickshaws
"Most tri-wheelers run on two-stroke engines, which significantly contribute to air pollution,” explains Badar Zaman, vice president of the rickshaw union in Peshawar. “However, no one has taken action against this problem."
According to Regional Transport Authority Secretary Naimatullah, there are around 13,000 registered rickshaws in Peshawar, but the actual number is much higher. “We do not have the exact number of unregistered rickshaws,
” Naimatullah says. He believes there are more than 50,000 registered and unregistered rickshaws in the city.
VETS has examined over 28,000 vehicles for gas emissions and noise production in 2014 and 2015, Zubair says. "Of these, over 7000 vehicles failed the tests," he remarks.
There are at least 50,000 auto-rickshaws in Peshawar alone. —Photo by the author
E-Rickshaw
These innovative rickshaws— also called E-Rickshaws— are the environmentally-friendly tri-wheeler solution for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's meandering roads. Their sleek bodies and pollution-free trails will be a welcome change to roads teeming with noisy, smoke-emitting auto-rickshaws. Once approved by KP's transport department, they will hit the streets of Peshawar, and eventually, to the rest of the province.
The new E-Rickshaws do not emit noise, smoke, or any hazardous gases. —Photo by the author
The World Health Organisation's (WHO) 2011 report ranked Peshawar the sixth most polluted city in the world. According to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), the average noise pollution (17 particles er million), far exceeds the permissible 9 PPM. In some spots, it is as much as 38 PPM.
Similarly, Peshawar's noise level is always above WHO’s limit of 85 decibels, confirms Pir Muhammad Zubair, who manages the provincial transport department's Vehicular Emission Testing Station (VETS).
Experts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are concerned about the dangerous pollution levels. They blame the run-down vehicles plying on Peshawar's streets, which emit poisonous gases like nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, smoke and hydrocarbons into the air, rendering it unfit for human consumption.
“The emission of air pollutants is directly related to consumption of petroleum products,” Zubair explains. Road transport, which relies on fuel, is responsible for 47.2 per cent of the country's total petroleum products, both locally-produced and imported.
However, while all vehicles consume fuel and pollute the air, tri-wheelers—with their jarring thuk-thuk sounds and high gas emissions—are particularly harmful to the environment.
Too many rickshaws
"Most tri-wheelers run on two-stroke engines, which significantly contribute to air pollution,” explains Badar Zaman, vice president of the rickshaw union in Peshawar. “However, no one has taken action against this problem."
According to Regional Transport Authority Secretary Naimatullah, there are around 13,000 registered rickshaws in Peshawar, but the actual number is much higher. “We do not have the exact number of unregistered rickshaws,
” Naimatullah says. He believes there are more than 50,000 registered and unregistered rickshaws in the city.
VETS has examined over 28,000 vehicles for gas emissions and noise production in 2014 and 2015, Zubair says. "Of these, over 7000 vehicles failed the tests," he remarks.
There are at least 50,000 auto-rickshaws in Peshawar alone. —Photo by the author
E-Rickshaw
