Alternative Policy Solutions | Auto Rickshaws in Egypt: Ineffective transport strategies

Auto Rickshaws in Egypt: Ineffective transport strategies

  • 19 Nov, 2019

Mariam Elashmawy

Mariam Elashmawy is a Researcher at Alternative Policy Solutions. She is also a Teaching Assistant at the American University in Cairo, where she obtained her BA in Political Science with a Minor in Anthropology. She is currently pursuing an MA in Arabic Studies, with a concentration in Middle East History, at AUC. Her research interests focus on the accessibility of knowledge production, intellectual Middle East History, and socio-economic justice.  

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Ever since their controversial debut in the streets of Cairo in 2005, auto rickshaws (Tuk Tuks) have been under the disparaging scrutiny of the public. Their journey in Egypt has been warped in national discourse due to pejorative neoliberal connotations towards informality. Various attempts have been made to limit the presence of auto rickshaws in Egypt, but were ineffective in the face of a growing informal and dynamic market.  Recently, however, the Egyptian Cabinet of Ministers announced its ban on the importation and manufacturing of auto rickshaws, in addition to demanding all current owners to swap their vehicles with minivans (and pay the difference in price) supplied by the government (Cabinet, 2019). For a very popular means of transportation, the phenomenon is greatly under-researched. Regulation policies are also often drafted in exclusion of drivers’ participation. This approach is consistent in how the government deals with the informal sector. Hence, there is a need to undertake a wide-scale study of the auto rickshaw dynamics in Egypt in order to formulate regulative and participatory transport policies, as well as approach informal modes of living and surviving with a more inclusive strategy.  

Informal transport in urban spaces

In order for there to be effective and regulative transport policies, specifically concerned with auto rickshaws, two things need to be taken into account. Firstly, there is a need to understand the economic demands driving the usage of auto rickshaws by involved agents, which include their necessity as feeder mode transport [i] for lower-income classes. Secondly, there is a glaring scarcity of literature and data on the presence and impact of auto rickshaws in Egypt. This includes data on the magnitude of importation, number of manufacturing jobs depending on it, and drivers’ livelihoods. The most recent data available on the aforementioned was found in an N Gage Consulting Report on Egypt (2015) and CAPMAS’ Statistical Yearbook on Transport indicating the number of licensed tuk tuks in 2016-2017. Ineffective policy interventions are, thus, due to the fact that the informal transport sector in Egypt is understudied and inaccessible to government officials or policy makers. 

In 2015, it was found that six million Egyptians consider auto rickshaws as their main source of income (N Gage, 2015); thus, highlighting the multiplicity of agents in the process of importing, assembling, and driving a rickshaw -- all of whom have to be included in the formulation of regulatory solutions. The data available indicates that there are three companies that monopolize the import of auto rickshaws, as well as 15 factories that undertake the assembly and production processes in Egypt. As for the number of licensed vehicles, CAPMAS (2019) estimates it to be around 125,275 with only four auto rickshaws licensed in Cairo in 2017.

Plenty of information has been gathered on auto rickshaws in India. From such data, we can highlight key issues that concern officials, environmentalists, and city dwellers vis-a-vis the unprecedented spread of auto rickshaws in the global south. These issues include (1) safety concerns for passengers of auto rickshaws, (2) Particulate Matter Emissions (PME) as a critical environmental concern, (3) lack of consistency and transparency in the government’s approach towards vehicle regulation, and finally (4) lack of information on driver economics that can aid in formulating a consistent database for research (EMBARQ INDIA, 2012). 

The government’s approach to handling the issue has been inconsistent: including initial bouts of licensing, followed by abrupt limitations on importing parts, and a recent ban of the vehicle altogether. Accordingly, the informal transport sector is in need of a more participatory and evidence-based mechanism that can better serve all segments of society (Olufemi and Oluseyi, 2007, p. 4). 

Fourteen years of ineffective solutions  

Auto rickshaws were officially licensed in 2008, three years after their unofficial emergence in the streets of Cairo in 2005.  In February 2014, the discourse against the presence of auto rickshaws escalated towards vilification, leading to a one-year ban on the importation of the vehicle. This was followed by another decision in April of the same year which stipulated the confiscation of all unlicensed vehicles. No data is available with regards to the effect of these policies on the trading schemes and livelihoods of all agents involved in the auto rickshaw industry; however, transport policies against auto rickshaws escalated over time. In 2015, the vehicles were banned from operating in the streets of Cairo, and later in 2016, the government refused to issue any more licenses for the vehicle.  As a result, data gathered by CAPMAS in 2016-2017 showed there were very few licensed vehicles in Cairo.

This brings us to the recent announcement by Prime Minister Mustafa Madbuly during a press conference by the Egyptian Cabinet of Ministers announcing the new auto rickshaw transport policy in Egypt. As conveyed, the government’s solution to the deregulation and rising numbers of auto rickshaws was to ban the manufacture of the vehicles and to replace all existing ones with minivans (Cabinet, 2019). The proposal entails that the government confiscates all auto rickshaws from drivers and exchanges them with minivans, instead. Drivers and owners of auto rickshaws would bear the burden of paying the difference in price between the two vehicles to the government in soft loans. 

The decision is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, it did not include the different agents of the rickshaw industries in the decision-making process. Secondly, it does not take into account that auto rickshaws provide easier access to transport for residents of informal and peripheral neighborhoods (Talamini and Ferreira, 2019). Thirdly, the decision comes unheralded by an explanation or justification of the effect of banning auto rickshaws in the Greater Cairo Region and its impact on all agents in the importation, production, assembling and usage cycles. For this reason, new strategies need to be formulated when trying to implement effective and inclusive transport policies.

Strategies for an inclusive transport sector

By harnessing the power of data collection, those in the transport field will be able to produce efficient and adequate mobility policies inclusive of all types of transport (TfC and TICD, 2017). Researchers and officials should be able to recognize how data (1) aids in evaluating and enacting policies and regulations, (2) improves service provision for citizens, and (3) forecasts future activities with regards to planning and policy making (TfC and TICD, 2017). 

The daily ridership of Cairo is expected to increase to 35 million trips by 2022 (CODATU and CEREMA, 2017), thus creating a need to study the multiplicity of transport, especially in terms of feeder mode trips that connect between transports. The data gap in the transport field is caused by the lack of collaboration between different actors (public and private) and the scarcity of available information. 

In terms of participatory and inclusive strategies, involving active agents from the informal sector can be beneficial in two primary ways (Michels and De Gaff, 2010). Firstly, the involved parties have the know-how of the dynamic processes of manufacturing, driving, and riding informal feeder modes and should be considered an essential resource of information. Secondly, participation in decision making and implementation does not only breed the involved parties’ public responsibility, but also increases public engagement of individuals who have been operating in informality. As a consequence, this strategy allows us to move past the exclusionary dichotomy of formal/informal in the process of policy making. With a multiplicity of actors, coupled with detailed and inclusive data on informal modes of transport, an effective policy process may be possible in Egypt’s foreseeable future. 

[1] Using a form of an informal or formalized mode of passenger transportation that is flexible in terms of routes or schedule and is normally operated by small- to medium-sized vehicles (Talamini and Ferreira, 2019).

References

Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not reflect the opinions of The American University in Cairo or Alternative Policy Solutions.

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