Human-powered transport is the

transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

of person(s) and/or

goods In economics, goods are anything that is good, usually in the sense that it provides welfare or utility to someone. Alan V. Deardorff, 2006. ''Terms Of Trade: Glossary of International Economics'', World Scientific. Online version: Deardorffs ...

(

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

) using human muscle power. Unlike

animal-powered transport A working animal is an animal, usually domestication, domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for transportation (e.g. riding horses and camels ...

, human-powered transport has existed since time immemorial in the form of

walking Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an " inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults o ...

running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion by which humans and other animals move quickly on foot. Running is a gait with an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is in contrast to walkin ...

and

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

, as well as small vehicles such as

litter Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The waste is objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles, but ...

s, rickshaws,

wheelchair A wheelchair is a mobilized form of chair using two or more wheels, a footrest, and an armrest usually cushioned. It is used when walking is difficult or impossible to do due to illnesses, injury, disabilities, or age-related health conditio ...

s and wheelbarrows. Modern technology has allowed mechanical advantage devices and

machine A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromol ...

s to enhance human-power. Although motorization has increased speed and load capacity, many forms of human-powered transport remain popular for reasons of cost, convenience, leisure, physical exercise and

environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...

. Human-powered transport is sometimes the only type available, especially in underdeveloped or inaccessible regions.

Modes

Non-vehicular

* Crawling (human) *

Walking Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an " inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults o ...

(233

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s at ) ** Walking bus *

Running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion by which humans and other animals move quickly on foot. Running is a gait with an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is in contrast to walkin ...

(1,150

s at ) * Sprinting (1,690

s at ) *

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

* Climbing and

mountaineering Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become mounta ...

* Ice skating, roller skating, and inline skating *

Cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing whereby skiers traverse snow-covered terrain without use of ski lifts or other assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreational activity; however, some still use it as a m ...

Human-powered vehicles (HPVs)

Land vehicles

Skateboards A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. It is usually made of a specially designed 7–8-ply maple plywood deck and has polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboard ...

have the advantage of being so small and light that users can easily carry them when not skating. The most efficient and most popular human-powered land vehicle is the

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered transport, human-powered or motorized bicycle, motor-assisted, bicycle pedal, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two bicycle wheel, wheels attached to a ...

. Compared to the much more common upright bicycle, the

recumbent bicycle A recumbent bicycle is a bicycle that places the rider in a laid-back reclining position, and often called a Human-powered_land_vehicle, human-powered vehicle or HPV, especially if it has an aerodynamic fairing. Recumbents are available in a w ...

may be faster on level ground or down hills due to better

aerodynamics Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

while having similar power transfer efficiency. The

velomobile A velomobile (); velomobiel, velo, or bicycle car is a human-powered vehicle (HPV) enclosed for Aerodynamics, aerodynamic advantage and/or protection from weather and collisions. Velomobiles are similar to recumbent bicycles, pedal go-karts and ...

has potential to be useful in colder and wetter climates due to increased protection offered against the environment.

Cargo bike There have been many human powered vehicles designed and constructed specifically for transporting loads since their earliest appearance in the history of the bicycle, 20th century. They are referred to variously depending on the number of wheel ...

s are used to transport

cargo In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in cas ...

Cycle rickshaw The cycle rickshaw is a small-scale local means of transport. It is a type of tricycle designed to carry passengers on a vehicle for hire, for-hire basis. It is also known by a variety of other names such as bike taxi, velotaxi, pedicab, bi ...

s can be used as

taxicab A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a Driving, driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of thei ...

s. In 2016, AeroVelo cyclist Todd Reichert achieved the human-powered speed record of with a

at Battle Mountain, Nevada. Dutch cyclist Fred Rompelberg set a speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

on October 3, 1995, while cycling in the wake of a motor dragster pace-car. The wake of the pace-car reduced the aerodynamic drag against which Rompelberg pedalled to almost zero. Greg Kolodziejzyk set two world records recognized by both the International Human Powered Vehicle Association and Guinness (TM) World Records on July 17, 2006, on a race track in

Eureka, California Eureka ( ; Wiyot: ; Hupa: ; ) is a city and the county seat of Humboldt County, located on the North Coast of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt Bay, north of San Francisco and south of the Oreg ...

. The first record is for the most distance traveled in 24 hours by human power , and the second for the world's fastest time trial (23 hours, 2 minutes). Both records were broken on August 6, 2010, by Christian von Ascheberg who drove in 19 hours, 27 minutes and managed to go in 24 hours with his Milan SL

Velomobile A velomobile (); velomobiel, velo, or bicycle car is a human-powered vehicle (HPV) enclosed for Aerodynamics, aerodynamic advantage and/or protection from weather and collisions. Velomobiles are similar to recumbent bicycles, pedal go-karts and ...

. In the same race he also raised the 12-hour record to , which is an average of . In 1969, artists in a small

Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...

town began the Kinetic sculpture race which has grown to a , three-day all terrain, human-powered sculpture race and county wide event. It is held every year on the last weekend in May. The Shweeb system is a proposed transit network using recumbent bicycle technology to power pods suspended from monorails. A test built in

Rotorua Rotorua () is a city in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. It is sited on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authorities of New Zea ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

is open to the public as a leisure attraction. In September 2010 the system was chosen to receive funding from Google as part of project 10¹⁰⁰. There are no active proposals for its implementation.

Aircraft

=Fixed wing

= The '' Pedaliante'' flew short distances fully under human power in 1936, but the distances were not significant enough to win the prize of the Italian competition for which it was built. The flights were deemed to be a result of the pilot's significant strength and endurance, and not attainable by a typical human. Additional attempts were made in 1937 and 1938 using a catapult system, launching the plane to a height of . With the catapult launch, the plane successfully traveled the distance outlined by the competition, but was declined the prize due to the takeoff method. The first officially authenticated regularly feasible take-off and landing of a human-powered aircraft (one capable of powered takeoffs, unlike a glider) was made on 9 November 1961 by Derek Piggott in Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft ( SUMPAC). Perhaps the best-known human-powered plane is the Gossamer Albatross, which flew across the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

in 1979. The current distance and duration record recognized by the FAI, a straight distance of in 3 hours and 54 minutes, was achieved on 23 April 1988 from

Heraklion Heraklion or Herakleion ( ; , , ), sometimes Iraklion, is the largest city and the administrative capital city, capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion (regional unit), Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in G ...

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

to Santorini in a MIT Daedalus 88 piloted by Greek cyclist Kanellos Kanellopoulos. The current speed record recognized by the FAI is held by Musculair 2, built by Günther Rochelt, which was flown at by Holger Rochelt in 1985.

=Helicopters

= The first officially observed human-powered helicopter to have left the ground was the

Da Vinci III A human-powered helicopter (HPH) is a helicopter powered solely by one or more humans carried on board. As in other human-powered aircraft, the power is usually generated by pedalling. It remains a considerable engineering challenge to obtain ...

in 1989. It was designed and built by students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California, USA. It flew for 7.1 seconds and reached a height of . The second was the Yuri I in 1994, designed and built by students at Nihon University in Japan. It flew for 19.46 seconds and reached an altitude of . On 13 June 2013, the AeroVelo Atlas was the first to complete a flight that lasted 64 seconds and reached an altitude of 3.3 meters, thus winning the Sikorsky Prize.

=Airships and balloons

= French inventors have built man-powered

airship An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying powered aircraft, under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the ...

s and balloons. Solar balloons and solar airships are new types of balloons and airships. Because lift is supplied through buoyancy, human power can be devoted to thrust.

Watercraft

Human-powered watercraft include prehistoric, historic and well-known traditional and sporting craft such as canoes, rowing boats and

galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for naval warfare, warfare, Maritime transport, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during ...

s. The term ''human-powered boat'' is often used for more modern craft using propellers and water wheels for propulsion. These can be more efficient than paddles or oars and especially allow the use of the leg muscles which are generally stronger than arm muscles, even for non-athletes. Competitive rowing boats use sliding seats to engage the legs for propulsion with an oar for this reason, but require considerable skill to use efficiently. In addition, there is little skill required for forward propulsion while looking forwards and craft such as pedalos are popular at resorts.

=Hydrofoils

= Hydrofoils have less water resistance at the highest speeds attainable by humans and are thus usually faster than displacement boats on short courses. The world speed record on water was set 27 October 1991 by MIT professor Mark Drela who pedalled a human-powered hydrofoil, " Decavitator", to over a 100-meter course in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts, US.

=Submarines

= In 1989, the first human-powered International Submarine Race (ISR) was held in Florida with 17 craft. Since then nine more races have been held. The races themselves have been moved from the waters of Florida to the David Taylor Model Basin at the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and are held biennially. At the 9th ISR in 2007 (in which 23 submarines participated) several new records were set: A single-person craft, Omer5 achieved a record speed of breaking the Omer team's previous record of set by Omer 4 in 2004. Also Omer 6 snatched up a record for non-propeller driven craft with a speed of .

References

External links

Human Powered Vehicle Records

Human Powered Vehicle Challenge
- American Society Of Mechanical Engineers

Air

Human Powered Aircraft Group
- Virginia Tech
Human Powered Helicopters
- History, technology, people
Human powered blimp

Land

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Human Powered Vehicle Team
- Videos, photos, links, and other information about human powered land vehicles

Water

Human Powered Boats
- Events, photos, links
Human Powered Hydrofoils
from 1953 to 2005
''Decavitator'' Human-Powered Hydrofoil
- videos, documentation

{{Human-powered vehicles