ECO2027: Tuk Tuk Environmental Economics

Ahh, the ol' trusty stead: the Tuk-Tuk, the Auto-Rickshaw, the Three-Wheeler, or whatever you may call it. They're always there (except when you need one), waiting to depart you from your hard earned money. They cry poor, and live rich. The tuk-tuk drivers themselves claim they know EXACTLY where you want to go, and then take you to several altenrative destinations first: No, not Borella, I said ROSMEAD PLACE! NO! NOT Galle Face Hotel, I said CRICKET CLUB ON QUEENS ROAD!

"Bagatalle road"
"Kandy?"
"BagaTALLE road"
"Ipswitch?"
"BAGAtalle road"
"Washington DC?"
"Baga-fucking-talle road!"
"Oh, BaGATAlle road".
"...ass muncher...."

Welp, for all their good and all their bad, they are the mode of transport in Colombo. Some of you may feel a bit of de ja vous, and think I have been here before. Well that was ECO1011: Introduction to Tuk Tuk Economics, and since then, We've Graduated!

Living in a developing country, with minimal enforcement of any laws (unless of course they expect you to pay an "on the spot fine"), and with insufficient capital to invest in maintaining eqiupment and infrastructure, you can imagine that - well there's lots of pollution on the roads and lots of shit-box tuk tuks hanging about. And so, unsurprisingly, the President who doesn't like traffic because it slows down his convoy from his home to the nearest airfield, decided to improve the situation he would unilaterally impose a new law:

All Tuk Tuks Must Run On Compressed Natural Gas

I thought, "This is great!" when I first read about it. There's an environmental problem, solve it by just demanding new technologies be used, right? I mean, in Enviro Eco 101 you learn this is one of the most inefficient methods because you aint using the "invisible hand" as Adam Smith put it (i.e. the market). But that's cool, nothings going to change without some form of drastic decisions. It turns out there are a lot of Adam Smiths in this world, here's a few of them:

This one may have just been released from Jail...

This one looks almost as lucky as me on Friday night when I was da man on the roulette table in the "foreigners only" casino!!

I just liked this one's name....

But there's a problem in all of these over simplistic calculations (and thus the second year level subject!). In fact, it can actually be very difficult to reconcile these problems. Firstly, there are 300,000 tuk tuk drivers in Sri Lanka. Let's take a conservative estimate, and say that each of the breadwinner is from a household of 5. That's 1.5 million people who depend on tuk tuks for at least some, if not the majority, of their household income. Put it another way: 7.5% of Sri Lankans rely on Tuk-Tuks for their income! If the average tuk-tuk driver say takes 10 passengers a day (even on a bad day he will do better than that!), that's 15% of Sri Lankans rely on Tuk-Tuks for their daily transport!


Let's move on from the socio-economic perspective, and look at the politics. There are 300,000 tuk-tuk drivers. I will assume that all are of voting age, which is probably quite close to being true. Each one has a spouse, who relies on this income. 600,000 votes. They probably support another two members of their household of voting age that will also vote with their hip pocket. 1,200,000 votes. Please, feel free to stop me if you think my calculations are wrong. Nothing? Ok, I'll continue. Many of the people who use tuk tuks hate the fact that petrol prices are going up and making tuk tuks more expensive, if the policy makes prices of tuk tuks go up let's say 20% of them will also change their vote. 1,800,000 votes. Now, we need to subtract the three people who vote based on environmental issues, that The President will gain. 1,799,997 votes of a total 13,320,000 voters. That is, 13.5% of voters will vote based on the price of tuk-tuks in Sri Lanka. A swing of 27% as most vote for the incumbent.


So, unsurprisingly, The President has decided not to pursue the agenda. Now I could go on a rant why democracy sucks, and explain the benefits of having me as be ultimate dictator, but I am not sure if this blog is the right forum for that: I think I need to be on Dave Letterman instead.


So what do you do? Do you kow tow to the social and economic pressures that tuk-tuk drivers would face and allow them to continue using gas-guzzling tuk-tuks? Or do you try to reign in the air pollution problems (that create health costs, reduce people's happiness, and other externalitities) and then get unelected as a result?

It's a difficult question, but how about if I put this to you: In Bangladesh, a country much much poorer than Sri Lanka, since 1982 they have started using CNGs (compressed natural gas tuk-tuks) and almost all are now convereted.

Peace, Love, and Tree Gugging Pinky Socialist Left Pinky Punks,

B.