Human-powered transport is the

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

of person(s) and/or goods using human

muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of mus ...

power. Unlike

animal-powered transport The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to animal-powered transport: Animal-powered transport – broad category of the human use of non-human working animals (also known as "beasts of burden") for the movem ...

, 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 by an ' inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults ...

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

and

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

. Modern technology has allowed

machine A machine is a physical system using 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 macromolecul ...

s to enhance human-power. Although

motorization Since the start of the twentieth century, the role of cars has become highly important, though controversial. They are used throughout the world and have become the most popular mode of transport in many of the more developed countries. In deve ...

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 or environmental rights is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment (biophysical), environment, par ...

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

Modes

Non-vehicular

Crawling (human) Crawling or quadrupedal movement is a method of human locomotion that makes use of all four limbs. It is one of the earliest gaits learned by human infants, and has similar features to four-limbed movement in other primates and in non-primate ...

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 by an ' inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults ...

(233

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of 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 quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

s at 3 mph) ** Walking bus *

Running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This i ...

(1,150

s at 10 mph) * Sprinting (1,690

s at 15 mph) *

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

Climbing Climbing is the activity of using one's hands, feet, or any other part of the body to ascend a steep topographical object that can range from the world's tallest mountains (e.g. the eight thousanders), to small boulders. Climbing is done ...

and

mountaineering Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, ...

Ice skating Ice skating is the self-propulsion and gliding of a person across an ice surface, using metal-bladed ice skates. People skate for various reasons, including recreation (fun), exercise, competitive sports, and commuting. Ice skating may be per ...

roller skating Roller skating is the act of traveling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a recreational activity, a sport, and a form of transportation. Roller rinks and skate parks are built for roller skating, though it also takes place on streets, sid ...

, and

inline skating Inline skating is a multi-disciplinary sport and can refer to a number of activities practiced using inline skates. Inline skates typically have two to five polyurethane wheels depending on the style of practice, arranged in a single line by a ...

Cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreatio ...

Human-powered vehicles (HPVs)

Land vehicles

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

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

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. B ...

. Compared to the much more common

upright bicycle Body relative directions (also known as egocentric coordinates) are geometrical orientations relative to a body such as a human person's. The most common ones are: left and right; forward(s) and backward(s); up and down. They form three pairs ...

, the

recumbent bicycle A recumbent bicycle is a bicycle that places the rider in a laid-back reclining position. Most recumbent riders choose this type of design for ergonomic reasons: the rider's weight is distributed comfortably over a larger area, supported by b ...

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

aerodynamics Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dy ...

while having similar

power transfer Energy transformation, also known as energy conversion, is the process of changing energy from one form to another. In physics, energy is a quantity that provides the capacity to perform work or moving, (e.g. Lifting an object) or provides heat. ...

efficiency. Velomobiles are increasingly popular in colder and/or wetter countries due to the protection they offer against the environment.

Cargo bike A cargo bike (also known as a box bike, carrier cycle, freight bicycle, cycletruck, or freight tricycle) is a human powered vehicle designed and constructed specifically for transporting loads. Cargo bike designs include a cargo area consisting o ...

s are used to transport

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tra ...

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

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 driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choi ...

s. In 2016, AeroVelo cyclist Todd Reichert achieved the human-powered speed record of with a velomobile at Battle Mountain, Nevada. Dutch cyclist

Fred Rompelberg Fred Rompelberg (born 30 October 1945, in Maastricht) is a Dutch cyclist who is mainly known for taking several attempts to break the Absolute World Speed Record Cycling. On 3 October 1995 he cycled behind a motor dragster on the Bonneville Salt ...

set a speed record at the

Bonneville Salt Flats The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bur ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

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 The International Human Powered Vehicle Association (IHPVA) is a US-based organization dedicated to promoting the design and development of human powered vehicles (HPVs) and the keeping of speed and distance records for these vehicles and bikes. ...

and Guinness (TM) World Records on July 17, 2006 on a race track in

Eureka, California Eureka (Wiyot: ''Jaroujiji'', Hupa: ''do'-wi-lotl-ding'', Karuk: ''uuth'') is the principal city and county seat of Humboldt County in the Redwood Empire region of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt B ...

. 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. 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 (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

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 Shweeb is a proposed personal rapid transit network in New Zealand, based on human-powered monorail cars. The project prototype was originally designed and implemented in Rotorua, New Zealand, as a leisure attraction. The proposed Shweeb tran ...

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. The city lies on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encomp ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

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 The ''Pedaliante'' (Italian for "Pedal Glider") was a human-powered aircraft designed and built by Enea Bossi and Vittorio Bonomi and credited with, in 1936, making one of the first fully human-powered flights. The aircraft successfully traveled ...

'' 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 Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of gliding ...

) was made on 9 November 1961 by

Derek Piggott Alan Derek Piggott (27 December 1922 – 6 January 2019) was one of Britain's best known glider pilots and instructors. He had over 5,000 hours on over 153 types of powered aircraft and over 5,000 hours on over 184 types of glider. He was honou ...

Southampton University , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

's Man Powered Aircraft (

SUMPAC The Southampton University Man Powered Aircraft (or SUMPAC) on 9 November 1961 became the first human-powered aeroplane to make an officially authenticated take-off and flight. It was designed and built by Southampton university students betwee ...

). Perhaps the best-known human-powered plane is the

Gossamer Albatross The ''Gossamer Albatross'' is a human-powered aircraft built by American aeronautical engineer Dr Paul B MacCready's company AeroVironment. On June 12, 1979, it completed a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second Kremer p ...

, which flew across the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Ka ...

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 Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) 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 Gree ...

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

Santorini Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira ( Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from the Greek mainland. It is t ...

in a

MIT Daedalus The MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus was a human-powered aircraftJohn McIntyreMan's Greatest Flight, ''AeroModeller'', August 1988 (in files of Royal Aeronautical Society Human Powered Aircraft Group) (accessed Nov. 13 2012) ...

88 piloted by Greek cyclist

Kanellos Kanellopoulos Kanellos Kanellopoulos (born 25 April 1957) is a Greek former cyclist. He competed in the individual road race event at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He was also the pilot and human engine for the 1988 MIT Daedalus project, completing the 72.4&nbs ...

. 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 bo ...

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 The AeroVelo Atlas is a human-powered helicopter (HPH) that was built for AHS International's Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition. On 13 June 2013, it became the first aircraft to achieve the goals of the competition and thus ...

was the first to complete a flight that lasted 64 seconds and reached an altitude of 3.3 meters, thus winning the

Sikorsky Prize The Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition was established in 1980 by the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International. The award, the AHS Sikorsky Prize, was given for the first human powered helicopter (HPH) to meet a set of ...

=Airships and balloons

= French inventors have built man-powered

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

s and

balloons A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light s ...

. Solar balloons and

solar airships Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

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 that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be u ...

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

pedalo A pedalo (British English) or paddle boat (U.S., Canadian, and Australian English) is a human-powered watercraft propelled by the action of pedals turning a paddle wheel. Description A pedalo is a human-powered watercraft propelled by the ...

s 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 ''Decavitator'' is a human-powered hydrofoil equipped with pedals and an air propeller that was built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It holds the human-powered speed record on water. The vehicle was displayed hanging in the entry ...

", to 18.5 knots (21.3 mph)(9.53 meters/second) over a 100-meter course in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, 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 The Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center is one of eight Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Surface Warfare Centers. The headquarters is located in Carderock, Maryland with the historic David Taylor Model Basin. The division i ...

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 ''Omer'' is the name of a series of human-powered submarines. The submarines were built by students of the '' École de technologie supérieure'' (School of Higher Technology) in Montreal, Quebec, for the International Submarine Races. {{As of, 2 ...

achieved a record speed of 8.035 knots breaking the Omer team's previous record of 7.19 knots set by Omer 4 in 2004. Also Omer 6 snatched up a record for non-propeller driven craft with a speed of 4.642 knots.

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