Travelling light

Anyone regularly suffering the horrors of travel in our congested cities would be forgiven for thinking they’d like to abandon traffic jams, parking tickets, timetables and delays in favour of scooting about quickly, easily and cheaply at times of their choosing.

That might sound like a dream, or even wishful thinking, but it does explain i-swing: a concept vehicle developed by Toyota in Japan.

Unveiled at the Tokyo motor show earlier this month, i-swing is described by its creator as ‘a new personal mobility vehicle that allows drivers to express their individuality’ and as a ‘single-person vehicle package [that] boasts an individual design with a “wearable” feeling’.

The electric-powered vehicle is, essentially, a voluptuously sculpted seat on three wheels. At relatively high speeds not specified by Toyota, it operates on all three wheels; but it can also travel at walking speeds by retracting the front wheel and rising up on its two rear wheels, putting the occupant — or wearer — in a nearly standing position and using gyroscopic balancing to stay upright.