Miri Regev's Public Transport Reform Leads to Sharp Decline in Fare Validations

New data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reveal a significant drop in public transportation fare validations following the implementation of Transport Minister Miri Regev's "Transport Justice" reform. In 2025, the growth rate of fare validations fell to just 1.4%, down sharply from approximately 7% the previous year. This decline confirms earlier assessments by the Knesset Research and Information Center that the reform would not increase public transport ridership.

The reform, launched in early 2024, aimed to reduce travel costs and encourage public transport use by lowering the eligibility age for free rides from 75 to 67 and introducing a 50% discount for residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. However, to finance these discounts, Regev redirected a budget of 500 million shekels originally intended for expanding routes and trips. Additionally, she opted to raise general fare prices instead of accepting a 700 million shekel budget cut, causing a cumulative fare increase of about 45% for a single urban ride, from 5.50 shekels before the current government to 8 shekels today.

This fare hike sparked public protests dubbed the "Fare Validation Rebellion," with reports indicating that the percentage of passengers evading fare validation rose from 20% to 30% within a year. The reform also failed to attract more elderly passengers; while the number of those eligible for a 50% discount dropped by nearly half, the number of free-ride cardholders almost doubled due to the lowered eligibility age. Yet, the combined share of these groups remained almost unchanged, indicating no real growth in elderly ridership but rather a shift from paying passengers to free riders.

Overall, the data suggest that the reform's approach, raising fares for the general public to subsidize discounts for select groups, has not succeeded in increasing overall public transport usage and has instead led to reduced fare compliance and public dissatisfaction.