Jinrikisha (rickshaw)
- Date
- 1869 · confidence medium
- Place
- Tokyo, Japan
- Credited to
- Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke and Suzuki Tokujiro (attribution disputed)
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A light two-wheeled cart with a seat for one or two passengers, pulled on foot by a runner. It was the first cheap private passenger transport of Asian cities and spread from Japan to China, India, Singapore and Africa.
Three Japanese men applied in 1869 for a licence to make it in Tokyo; the American missionary Jonathan Goble in Yokohama is also credited with the idea. There is no conclusive proof of who was first.
What it led to
- mass employment of pullers in Asian cities until the 1930s
- an individual urban transport model that led to the cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaw