The Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Transport’s fares committee has determined to postpone the general public transport fare value hike deliberate for subsequent week till January. From July 1, public transport fares had been because of full a 50% rise since April, when the value of a fundamental journey rose from NIS 6 to NIS 8. Subsequent week the fare was because of rise once more to NIS 9.
Yearly public transport fares are routinely revised in line with the rise within the public transport enter index, which consists of wages, insurance coverage, gas, and so on. and this July the fare ought to have risen by an additional NIS 1.
An extra finances supply has been discovered because the begin of the Iran battle
Final month Minister of Transport Miri Regev requested Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich to stop the fare enhance and discover another finances supply. There would have been no chance of funds being discovered, with the 2025 finances handed, and additional funds wanted to increase the battle in Gaza.
The 2025 finances already contains reductions for folks aged 18-26, free journey for discharged troopers and reductions for residents of the periphery, and reducing free journey from 75 to 67.
However since then, the battle with Iran has damaged out and it’s clear that the extra fare enhance should be postponed. The Ministry of Transport has discovered a budgetary supply of NIS 115 million by reducing public transport providers following the Dwelling Entrance Command’s emergency directions.
Public transport journeys are sponsored by the state by large quantities that develop yearly and have jumped fourfold within the final decade, reaching NIS 14 billion yearly. On the identical time, cash coming in from passengers has fallen and eroded through the years, in order that in 2023 the common was NIS 2.7 per journey, in contrast with NIS 8 in 2004.
Thus, the elevated subsidy partly compensated for the erosion in income however has not led to a rise in public transport providers in a means that might appeal to passengers to make use of it. Actually, the state subsidy charge stood at about 90% of the price of the journey earlier than the latest enhance. The Ministry of Finance believed that in the event that they decreased this charge, they’d be capable of add extra providers and any extra providers would value much less.
This compares with most different OECD international locations, the place fares are rather more costly and authorities subsidies are tens of % lower than in Israel. Nevertheless, in these international locations, they didn’t make do with simply frequent bus providers, but in addition established preferential infrastructure for public transport, akin to bus lanes and railways. In Israel, the state has solely spent NIS 400 million yearly on creating bus lanes despite the fact that the five-year finances is NIS 6 billion.
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on June 22, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
