The Transportation Ministry says it is advancing a plan to shift 40% of truck activity to nighttime hours. The idea is meant to ease congestion and reduce the safety risk from heavy vehicles, which are involved in fatal crashes far more often than their share of traffic would suggest.
Israel’s freight system, however, is still dominated by trucks despite the scale of rail’s potential. An average truck carries up to 30 tons, while one freight train can move about 2,000 tons, replacing roughly 50 to 70 trucks. About 99% of imports arrive through ports, around 60 million tons a year, but only 4 million tons are moved by freight rail and the rest by trucks, even though nearly all ports are connected to rail lines. In a typical year, trucks haul 200 million tons versus 6.6 million tons by rail.
Road-safety data underscores the problem. The National Road Safety Authority says heavy vehicles accounted for about 27% of fatal road crashes over the past decade, even though they make up only 4% of vehicles in Israel. Or Yarok reported a 33% rise in the number of trucks and buses involved in fatal crashes in 2024 compared with the previous year.
Industry prefers trucks for two main reasons, rail capacity is still limited, and trucks are cheaper. But the rail bottleneck is easing, with all Israeli ports connected to rail in 2024, the cargo terminal in Beit Shemesh reopened after 30 years, and the Eastern Railway expected to open in coming months, with half its service reserved for freight. The ministry also points to inland ports linked to rail as a way to make freight trains more useful. While passenger rail is subsidized, freight customers pay the full cost, though the state does fund shared infrastructure such as rail links to ports and electrification and signaling projects. The ministry said the night-trucking plan is a complement to rail freight, adding that daytime tracks are almost fully occupied by passenger trains and that it is now reviewing the freight subsidy model and planning dedicated cargo infrastructure.
