The inventor of the rickshaw is unknown. We know the rickshaw was in use in Japan in the late 1860s. This light, two-wheeled cart was used as a taxi-like form of transport drawn by a rickshaw runner. The rickshaw was instantly popular and became the chief form of public transport in Japan, with 210 000 vehicles used daily in 1896. It was also exported overseas from 1873, mainly to China and Southeast Asia. The life of a rickshaw runner was hard and often the vehicle he pulled was where he ate, slept and kept his few possessions.The average speed of the rickshaw runner was about 8 km/h and the usual distance covered was from 32 to 48 km each day! As new methods of transport were developed in Japan including buses and automobiles, the demand for rickshaws gradually declined and by the 1930s only a handful remained.