The Ministry of Finance Prices and the Ministry of Transport decided to postpone the high price of public transport fare for the next week until January. As of July 1, it was scheduled to complete the high public transport rates by 50 % since April, when the basic trip price rose from 6 NIS to 8 NIS. Next week, the fare was scheduled to rise again to 9 NIS.
Every year public transportation prices are automatically revised according to the increase in public transport input index, which consists of wages, insurance, fuel, etc., and the fare should rise by 1 NIS.
An additional budget source has been found since the beginning of the Iran war
Last month, Minister of Transport Miri Regev asked Finance Minister Bezallil Smotrich to prevent increased fare and find an alternative source of budget. There will be no possibility of finding money, with the passage of the 2025 budget, and the additional funding needed to expand the war in Gaza.
The 2025 budget already includes discounts for people between the ages of 18 and 26 years, free travel for soldiers and discounts of the ocean population, and reduce free travel from 75 to 67.
But since then, the war has erupted with Iran and it is clear that the additional fee must be postponed. The Ministry of Transport found a budget source of 115 million NIS by reducing public transport services after emergency instructions in the internal leadership.
Public transport trips are supported by the state with huge amounts that grow every year and jumped four times in the past decade, reaching 14 billion New annually. At the same time, the money coming from the passengers decreased and eroded over the years, with the average in 2023 2.7 NIS per trip, compared to NIS 8 in 2004.
Consequently, the increasing support that has been partially compensated for corrosion in revenue but has not led to an increase in public transport services in a way that attracts passengers to use. In fact, the state support rate was about 90 % of the cost of the trip before the last increase. The Ministry of Finance believed that if they reduce this rate, they will be able to add more services and any additional services will cost less.
This is compared to most other countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, where prices are much more expensive, and government benefits are less than tens of percent in Israel. However, in these countries, they did not only with frequent bus services, but also a preferential infrastructure for public transport, such as buses and railways. In Israel, the country spent only 400 million NAN annually on the establishment of bus passages, although the five -year budget is 6 billion New.
It was published by Globes, Israel Business News – En.globles.co.il – on June 22, 2025.
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