Three Wheels United

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Photo source: Three Wheels United

Category:

Innovation

Initiative:

Providing affordable finance for smart, electric auto rickshaws and integrating them with public transportation infrastructure
  

About

India has 22 of the world's 50 most polluted cities. Contributing to this pollution and city congestion are 6 million rickshaws operated by approximately 12 million drivers. These rickshaws contribute 10% of India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Less polluting vehicles can make the difference but auto rickshaw drivers are limited in their access to affordable finance, due to a lack of banking history, leaving them in exploitive lending cycles or choosing to rent a vehicle daily.

Three Wheels United (TWU) finances smart electric auto rickshaws and integrates them with public transportation. TWU helps drivers switch to these vehicle by offering alternate credit rating mechanisms to lend to this market.

TWU has financed over 2,000 lower carbon vehicles with a default rate of less than 1%. The new vehicles can reduce CO2 emissions by 21,900 tonnes over their operational life cycles. TWU plans to finance 60,000 auto rickshaws over the next 4 years, reducing carbon emissions by over 3.9 million tonnes. This will help ensure the sustainability of the vehicles and of the larger transport system by processing data and providing feedback to all stakeholders and operators. In this way TWU is playing a key role in making smart and sustainable cities.