In Bangladesh, the cycle rickshaw fleet is estimated to grow from two-thirds of a million in 1988 to over one million by 2000. On secondary roads, non-motorized transport vehicles make up about 85 percent of traffic. There is, however, substantial variability, depending on many factors, including topography, income, metropolitan structure, level of motorization, climate, and transport policies. In Chinese cities, bicycle use has grown dramatically in recent decades. Bicycles have largely replaced buses as the principal means of urban vehicular transport in Tianjin.
Buses are generally slower for the same trip made bicycle.
Less pronounced, but similar trends occurred in Shanghai in the 1980s. Cycle-rickshaw traffic typically accounts for 10 to 20 percent of the traffic on primary urban roads and for 5 to 20 percent of all person trips in Indian and Pakistani cities. These vehicles, along with hand-carts, account for a major share of urban freight movement in Chinese cities. Urban bicycle rickshaws were estimated to have put in 32,810 passenger miles per vehicles per year and carried 94 ton miles of goods per vehicles per year in Bangladesh. Depending on location, between 8 and 18 percent of rickshaws carried passengers with small children.