Lab Report

Introduction

Research has established that Indians are capable of squeezing hundreds of individuals into a train carriage or bus, and that other forms of transportation are often similarly overloaded (G. Buddha, 2009). Unfortunately for the state of science, to date little research has been directed to quantifying the number of persons Indians may fit in a jeep. The most popular jeep-like vehicle in India is the Tata Sumo, a 4-door off-road vehicle.

Research Question

How many Indians can fit in one Tata Sumo?

Note that here it is necessary to define the phrase "fit in". By some Indian definitions this would encompass individuals hanging on top of or from the sides of the exterior of the vehicle. Colloquially, however, this definition is rarely applied to jeeps as in the field jeep operators are less apt to permit this means of transport as are bus, train, and rickshaw operators. The distinction also arises of whether or not the doors are open, as jeep overcrowding has been shown to sometime prevent the proper closure of the side doors and rear hatch (henceforth "the doors"). In this experiment we shall use the definition suggested in the unpublished paper "Vehicle Door Closing In The Indian Field Environment" (G. Buddha, 2010), which is as follows: a vehicle door shall be considered closed if it is functionally closed at the 95th percentile of maximum theoretical closure; that is to say, if the door is ajar no more than 5% of its total swinging arc.

The question we wish to answer therefore is "How many Indians may be transported by a statistically significant distance while confined within a single Tata Sumo with its doors ajar no more than 5% of their opening arc?"

Hypothesis

Allowing for the extraordinary cramming abilities of Indian transport sysems, and the apparent designed capacity of 8 passengers, we hypthesize that no more than 17 Indians can fit within a single Tata Sumo.

Materials
20 Indian rupees
1 Tata Sumo

Method

We shall purchase passage aboard a Tata Sumo. While aboard the Tata Sumo, we shall periodically count the total number of passengers therein.

Data

Table 1.1: Number of Passengers Within Tata Sumo

Column A = Observation #.
Column B = Number of passengers.

Col. A...............Col. B

1....................12
2,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,15
3....................17
4,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,21
5....................23
6,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,25
7....................26
8,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,24
9....................25
10,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,26
11...................20
12,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,18
13...................15
14,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,7
15....................0

Analysis

The total number of passengers almost immediately exceeded our estimate. For the duration of the journey after departure and before entering the limits of the destination city, the data shows there was at any time in excess of 20 people in the jeep. The figure peaked, on two occasions, at 26 people.

Conclusions

We are forced to accept that our hypothesis was greatly in error, and that Indians may cram at least 26 people in a jeep.

The design of our experiment has, however, revealed a number of flaws. Though we have now critically revised our knowledge of the capacity of Indian jeeps, we have failed in any way to satisfactorily establish the true maximum level of Jeep cramming. Due to the frailty of the human observer, no attempt was made to experimentally add more Indians to the jeep.

We are also forced to acknowledge that the observer was not himself an Indian, and thus may have introduced a confounding variable. We speculate that as the ratio of Indians to total passengers approaches 1, the total capacity of the jeep approaches infinity. More research is clearly needed.

Though we have failed to arrive at a complete understanding of Indian jeep dynamics, we have demonstrated the potential scope and urgency of further experiments. The field of Indovolumetrics is as yet a young science, but no doubt holds great value in mankind's everlasting pursuit of knowledge.

This article will appear in no peer-reviewed journals, because Ghostface Buddha has no peers