Michael Ayre and J. D. G. F. Howe

Basic vehicles: A new approach to rural transportation

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ceres may-june 1982

Michael Ayre is the Project Officer and J.D.G.F.
Howe the Executive Director of Intermediate Technology Transport Ltd. UK. Both Mr.
Ayre and Dr. Howe have professional experience in developing Countries.

Excerpt from: Bicycle Reference Manual for Developing Countries. Edited by Barbara Gruehl Kipke, April 1991.

Although the improvement of transportation capability is widely recognized by governments and development agencies as crucial to broader strategies aimed at improving agricultural productivity and income, the small farmer's transportation needs are rarely given specific attention. Small-farm transportation has rarely been studied in detail, but it can be divided into two broad categories, on-farm and off-farm.

On-farm transportation is needed to move implements and inputs to the land and harvested produce to the dwelling. Household requirements include fetching water and firewood. Frequently overlooked, these on-farm needs can both burdensome anti time-consuming, particularly if traditional methods are used. The predominant mode is human portering, loads being carried on the head, shoulder or back according to custom and type of cargo.

Off-farm transportation is required to move purchased agricultural inputs to the dwelling or store and marketed produce to the point of sale. It often consists of two elements: between farm or dwelling and roadside, and between roadside and collection point or market.

Clearly, if no effective transportation is available for such tasks, a great deal of time and human effort is required. And the arduous nature of many head- and back-loading techniques can cause injury or physical disability, particularly to women.

Past rural transportation strategies at troth national and international level have concentrated on providing access, usually interpreted as access to roads. The major concession to the possibility that developing countries might have special rural transportation problems has been the considerable international effort devoted to "low-cost roads," the assumption being that most small-scale farmers have both reasonable expectations of living close to a road and the means of transporting goods to and from the roadside. In the poorest countries, however, the task of providing even basic roads to serve rural communities is immense, given the very low density of existing networks and the cost of modern road construction: it is likely that the majority of small farmers will continue to live remote from the main road system for many years.

Ironically, the consequences of inadequate access affect both areas capable of surplus production and those of subsistence farming. A recent study of proposed road improvements in the Makete District of Tanzania showed that the wide range of temperate and tropical crops grown there could not be moved to areas suffering chronic food shortages because the transportation system within the District was totally inadequate. The study identified two chief causes: poor road conditions and the scarcity of vehicles.

In developing road transportation over the past two or three decades, the implicit assumption has been that farmers would have free access to motor vehicles, either their own or those of private entrepreneurs or cooperative societies. Conceived in a time of mass production and cheap fuel, this assumption has become increasingly untenable as the cost of purchasing, running and maintaining motor vehicles suitable for rural conditions has continued to rise and small-farm incomes have remained static or even fallen in real terms. In many developing countries, supplies of fuel, spare parts and vehicles themselves are becoming more difficult to obtain as foreign exchange and credit become increasingly restricted. Moreover, the near global failure of cooperatives to make expensive resources available on a shared basis means that small farmers will continue to have very little access to privately owned motor vehicles.

In any event, the provision of roads and vehicles can solve only a part of the farmers' transportation needs, as they are oriented toward movement between collection point and urban centre, rather than between farm and collection point.

A farm-level study carried out in Kenya suggested that transportation was needed mostly to move small loads (10-150 kg units) over relatively short distances (1-25 km). On-farm, the range of loads was likely to be the same, but the typical distances were shorter (1-13 km). Collection of water and wood required for household use (50 and 30 kg respectively) occupied three to six hours a day.

All of the on-farm and the initial element of most off-farm (i.e., between farm or dwelling and roadside) movements must be made on footpaths and tracks rather than roads: in many developing countries this situation is unlikely to change. The nature of these "routes" severely restricts the type of vehicle that can be used. Given variation in income, geography and farming systems, a "universal vehicle" appropriate to all small-farm needs is not possible. Rather, what is needed is a graduated choice of vehicles whose performances match need and whose costs are in sensible relation to income. To be fully sustainable within a rural community, such vehicles should also utilize indigenous manufacturing and maintenance capabilities.

These considerations lead logically to forms of transportation radically different in concept from conventional motor vehicles: they range from human- to animal- and, at the extreme, simple motor- driven vehicles. They may be collectively termed "basic vehicles" and defined as the range of devices from aid to goods movement by man himself up to but excluding conventional cars, vans, buses and tracks. Six broad categories of basic vehicle can be identified:

• aids to head-, shoulder- and backloading
• pedal-driven vehicles (bicycles, cycle trailers, tricycles)
• handcarts and wheelbarrows
• animal transportation (pack animals and animal-drawn sledges and carts)
• low-cost motor vehicles (often based on motorcycle technology)
• basic motorized agriculture/transportation devices (e.g., single-axle tractors).

Some basic vehicles are primitive, being traditional devices that have remained unchanged for many years. This is particularly true of many bullock and donkey carts. Most are too heavy because they contain old car or truck axles and wheels rather than purpose-designed assemblies and their wooden bodies are too robust. Many are badly balanced, so that a significant portion of the load bears down on the necks of the animals. The simple yoke harness, often used with bullock carts, transmits only a small part of the animal's potential pulling power. Almost all such devices could be improved by using contemporary technical knowledge and could increase the efficiency and usefulness of transport facilities without introducing new systems which require traditional farming methods to be changed.

To overcome the weight problem from using scrap motor-vehicle parts, manufacturers in India produce a pneumatic-tired wheel for animal-drawn vehicles that runs on ball bearings and is fitted to a specially fabricated steel axle. The cost of a cart with a steel axle and animal-drawn vehicle tires is approximately twice that of the traditional vehicles, hut it can carry more than double the load and faster. However, until a few years ago, their penetration of the market was very limited, but, spurred by the high price of imported fuel, both state and commercial banks are now financing the purchase of animal-drawn carts, especially in sugar- and jutegrowing areas, and recent growth has been spectacular. The provision of finance to allow purchase by small farmers appears to have been the crucial step.

The movement of goods along footpaths and tracks is an area of particular interest as these are likely to remain the small farmer's primary routes. Such routes do not allow speed to be increased significantly, but distribution of food and access to seed and fertilizer can be improved by increasing possible payloads or reducing the effort required to move them. Traditional methods of human portering are arduous and time-consuming. This means loads are limited to about 40 kg. One notable attempt at improving the techniques of human portering was the joint work of the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and Soong Jun University, Republic of Korea, on the Korean chee-ke. The chee-ke is a traditional form of backloading frame and "is very inefficient, difficult to handle and very heavy when it is fully loaded. Nevertheless, in the light of Korea's hilly and rocky terrain, (it) can hardly be discarded." Through a programme of research and development involving farmers, rural blacksmiths, traditional chee-ke makers, specialists in farm equipment and engineers, an improved chee-ke was produced. Six successive models were evolved before a satisfactory design was achieved. The improved chee-ke converts easily from a back-frame to a wheeled carrier.

The bicycle, popular in many parts of the world, is also well suited to footpaths and tracks and is much faster than walking. Bicycles are used to carry quite large loads perched on the crossbar or over the front or rear wheel. If a very heavy load is to be moved, the bicycle may of course be pushed rather than ridden. Nevertheless, until recently, this "simple" mode of transportation has been largely ignored by those involved in development planning, and very little systematic effort has been devoted to improving it for farm transportation.

For the movement of larger loads on footpaths and tracks, a handpropelled vehicle with a single wheel has considerable potential. The common wheel-barrow, however, is unsuitable for moving loads over long distances: its centre of gravity is behind the wheel, which means that much of the load is supported by the operator. And because the wheel is small (up to 400 mm in diameter) the wheelbarrow is difficult to push over rough ground.

The Chinese wheelbarrow is more effective than the Western type. It uses a larger wheel (about 700 mm in diameter), and the load is placed directly above it on a horizontal platform, thus locating the centre of gravity just behind the wheel axle. The operator has to support only a small part of the load, just enough to maintain control of the barrow, and can save his strength for pushing it forward. The large-diameter wheel eases travel over rough ground, and any tendency of the barrow to tip sideways is mitigated by a shoulder strap attached to the handles of the barrow.

Studies carried out by the World Bank showed that the maximum load for a Chinese barrow was about 180 kg. compared with about 120 kg for the Western type. I.T. Transport Ltd. is currently involved in the development, field-testing and local manufacture of a small-farm transportation vehicle based on the principle of the Chinese wheel-barrow. Basic design data on weight distribution, frame structure and the local manufacture of suitable wheels have been identified and further design work and testing in several developing countries is scheduled for 1982.

Clearly, a wide range of basic vehicles for the movement of goods along paths and tracks exists. These must ultimately, however, form the base of a broader transportation system capable of efficient distribution on a region or national scale. At a regional level, goods must he distributed between centres or transferred to central collection points; this involves moving large loads. If such a system is to respond to market needs and fluctuations in output, it must be flexible. In some circumstances animal-drawn vehicles offer this flexibility by using a power source with a multiplicity of agricultural applications. However, already mentioned, most animal carts are poorly designed and constructed, making it extremely difficult for the farmer to transport his produce and inputs. Prof. N.S. Ramaswamy, Director of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, has shown some of these injure the animals.

Animal-cart design needs to be completely reappraised, and devices that use the energy of the animals efficiently need to be developed. This would result in carts that could carry larger loads with less effort, in many cases using only one bullock instead of two. It is likely, therefore, that the cost of transportation would be decreased and its speed increased.

Simple motorized vehicles capable of both agricultural and transportation function would obviously offer a desirable flexibility and could extend the options available for regional Level operations, but they might be expensive, difficult to use and maintain or operationally unsatisfactory. In some parts of the world these problems have been overcome. The single-axle tractor is used extensively in China. It usually has a 7.5 kw single-cylinder diesel engine of simple yet robust design, and in addition to its agricultural functions it can be hitched to a trailer and haul a payload of 1200 kg at 15 km/hr. A similar device with a 4-5 petrol engine has been developed at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines specifically for the many small Asian rice farmers. The machine was designed to make maximum use of standard components that are readily available in most developing countries. The engine, roller chains, sprockets, bearings and seals used in the power tiller are imported by most Asian countries for other uses. The remaining components can be protected by small metalworking shops. The power tiller was introduced in 1972 and is now produced by 12 companies in six Asian countries. It is sold in the Philippines at £500, at proximately half that of comparable imported machines. In the first two years of manufacture in that country, some 700 new jobs were created in the manufacturing sector at a capital investment of about £100 per workplace.

There are sound commercial, economic and social reasons for promoting the use of basic vehicles, and there is evidence that more and more countries are considering the possibilities of introducing or improving such means of transportation as a simple way of combatting the problems created by the relentless rise in the price of oil. National distribution of goods will continue to rely on existing networks - roads, railways and navigable waterways. However, the efficiency of such systems, road systems in particular, can be significantly increased by utilizing a variety of basic vehicles at a local and regional level to reduce the complexity, length and duration of motor vehicle operations. This is particularly true in areas where motor vehicles are currently required to travel into relatively remote areas in order to collect or deliver small consignments. The transportation needs of the small farmer are substantial and extremely diverse. In order to meet these needs effectively, a range of options is required that would provide both flexibility and control over the timing of agricultural tasks. Present systems, by serving only the main collection points and urban centres, do not satisfy the majority of these needs and place the farmer at the bottom of the transportation infrastructure.

To improve the present situation will require fundamental changes in the policies toward small-farm transportation adopted at national and international levels of assistance. There seems no logical reason why governments and aid institutions should not play as dynamic a role in the provision of basic vehicles for the small-farm sector as they have done in the provision of roads. Indeed it would be irrational for them to continue to do otherwise, given that the track and vehicle are complementary and mutually dependent parts of the same system. "Provision" implies a much stronger involvement in the problems of vehicle technology transfer in general and finance, manufacture and distribution in particular. Knowledge of the nature of small-farm transport requirements is still poor, as is that of the technologies available: both deserve considerably more attention than they have received in the past. (As a contribution to this area Intermediate Technology Transport is currently preparing a guide to basic forms of transport.)