Motorcycle taxi
typically carries one passenger, who "rides pillion" behind the motorcycle operator
A motorcycle taxi or bike taxi, is a licensed form of transport in some countries. The taxi typically carries one passenger, who "rides pillion" behind the motorcycle operator. Multiple passengers are common in some countries.
Brazil
According to some sources, motorcycle taxi service in Brazil began in 1994, in Crateús, in the state of Ceará, when an employee of the Bank of Brazil bought 10 bikes for rent, for the transport of people. Other sources state that it started in Bauru, São Paulo, in 1996, when an unemployed biker hung a banner across the road to the city, reading "help a biker racing to 1.00 real." Today, almost all Brazilian cities have motorcycle taxi services. Recently, they have appeared in poorer and less urban areas, where young people increasingly support themselves by driving them.
Typically, the fare is a flat fee, regardless of the distance traveled. However, the charge may vary according to the time of day or day of the week, or increase for distances that are greater than usual.
Licensing requirements for motorcycle taxis vary by municipality. Small towns tend not to regulate them at all, while in larger cities, they are regulated in much the same way as taxicabs.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1233750. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Motorcycle taxi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.