On January 16, when actor Saif Ali Khan was stabbed by an intruder, the humble auto was suddenly thrust into the limelight as it served as the life-saving mode of transport that brought him to the hospital in the nick of time. The unassuming driver, who had no idea of the passenger’s celebrity status, focused on reaching the destination as quickly as possible. This incident served as a high-profile reminder of what autos do daily across the country: serve as the recourse for those who need to get somewhere fast and don’t have a private vehicle.
No one knows this better than urban women commuters. Multiple studies have shown that more women use the auto than men. Autos are a boon for women’s mobility in Indian cities because they are an on-demand, door-to-door mode of transport. Both are features that women value, given the time poverty they typically face and their safety concerns. The auto assures women a comfortable seat and avoids the wait at public transit stops. There’s no need to hold the saree up and run after a bus, which halts ahead of the bus stop, or risk getting groped in a crowded vehicle.
The shared auto, where about ten people share a vehicle, is the poorer cousin of the single-passenger auto, but even that is more efficient than the bus. The autokaran, made iconic by Rajinikanth in the blockbuster Baashha (1995), is sometimes reviled for refusal to accept a passenger or for unreasonable charges. Yet, he can also be a trusted figure. In southern cities, it is common practice for families hesitant to let women and girls travel alone to call a local, familiar auto driver and arrange the trip with him.
In tier two and tier three cities of northern India, there are typically no public intra-city buses because the economics do not favor the operator. Therefore, only intercity buses operate, whose routes are invariably linear, connecting only north-south or east-west. That’s where the auto comes to the rescue in heroic glory when someone lacks a private vehicle, even covering distances of over 20 kilometres. For instance, I once traveled from Noida to Greater Noida in an auto, a route that is underserved by buses, with the small vehicle cruising along the expressway, against the gust of hot loo winds.
Last mile connectivity is the holy grail of public transport that no Indian city has been able to fully solve in a scalable manner. Despite fancy solutions, ranging from feeder buses to electric scooters being discussed in many seminars, on the ground, it is the informal network of rickshaws and autos that greet passengers alighting at metro stations and drop them at their homes. For thousands of commuters, there would be no first or last-mile connectivity to transport hubs were it not for three-wheelers.
Seventy-five per cent of autos in the world are in India, providing livelihoods to hundreds of drivers, and we are also the largest producers of auto rickshaws globally. Autos add color to the city landscape with creative quotes on the back that range from the sophisticated (“No money for Volkswagen, thus Auto”) to the wise (“Buri nazar wale, tere bhi ho bhala”).
Despite its undeniable utility and dominant presence, urban transport policy relegates autos, along with rickshaws, tempos, taxis, and mini-buses, to a category called “Informal or Intermediate para transit” (IPTs). This term, by definition, implies a somewhat lesser status in the public transport pantheon. According to a 2023 report on the electrification of auto rickshaws, autos account for a quarter of all urban trips. Nevertheless, policies for granting permits to autos and setting fares are hostile and unnecessarily complex.
In many cities, autos are set up to compete rather than complement mass transit services. For example, Jalandhar, a tier-two city, has not had a city bus service for a decade. In 2014, the private operator managing the service stopped abruptly, protesting that autos competed with the bus service for passengers. It is crucial for local authorities to work out a mobility plan where buses and autos can serve citizens in different ways, improving overall accessibility to places.
While government policies have been restrictive, the inclusion of autos by ride-hailing platforms has saved drivers from the empty miles they were traveling while looking for passengers. Digitization has made the auto more appealing because the element of bargaining is removed, and safety is enhanced due to the trackability of rides. However, outside the realm of technology, kerbside auto drivers remain hustlers, trying to buck the system and scrambling for an extra buck.
Transport policy needs to treat autos as legitimate options rather than an annoyance on city roads. As a poignant quote I read a few years ago on an auto highlighted, “Hamari bhi kuch hasti hai, Nano isse bhi sasti hai.” (We autos are not the bottom of the heap; a Nano is cheaper than this). The writer is a visiting fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), and the views expressed are the writer’s own and not those of CSEP.
