Illustrative: Israelis waiting to board an Egged bus in the center of Jerusalem, January 17, 2012. (Miriam Alster/ Flash90)
Starting Thursday, Jerusalem commuters will no longer be able to use cash to purchase a ticket or fill up their Rav-Kav smart card on buses, the Egged bus company announced.
Residents of the capital were angered by the news that passengers will have to recharge their bus cards using a smartphone application or at special charging stations throughout the city.
A large percentage of regular bus travelers are elderly or members of the ultra-Orthodox community, many of whom do not use smartphones. The capital also sees an influx of foreign tourists who don’t hold the electronic cards.
Egged also admitted that only one-quarter of the 400 charging machines in the city accept cash, and most are located in the city center, making it difficult for residents of outlying neighborhoods to refill their card.
Additionally, from Thursday, only Rav-Kav cards which have an electronic chip will be accepted. When they initially came into use a decade ago, Rav-Kav cards were issued without the chip.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The bus company said the goal of the initiative was to increase driving safety.
The Transportation Ministry confirmed that beginning later this week, Rav-Kav cards for Jerusalem commuters can only be charged at one of the 400 charging stations, using the smartphone app, or from a home computer using a card reader which can be obtained from one of the Rav-Kav stores in the city (Hebrew link).
The ministry said Jerusalem was serving as a pilot for the rest of the country. Egged is a nationwide company, Israel’s largest.
Advertisement
Egged’s Rav-Kav smart card with and without the electronic chip. (Screen capture: Egged)
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
