Ministry of Transport and Finance postponed the entry of the new taxi fares to Saturday

At the last minute, the Ministry of Transport and Finance postponed the entry of the new taxi fares from Mr. Morning this coming Saturday, January 4th. This is after only a minority of the 25,000 taxi owners made sure to update the meter at the new rates, in view of the large opposition of the drivers to change. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Transport Minister Bezalel Smutrich signed the rejection order, despite the opposition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who urged ministers to freeze the reform until clear drivers' claims against it.
The drivers, who have been holding partial strikes and demonstrations for several days, say the change made by the transportation and finance ministries in calculating the price of travel in the city and outside the city will severely hurt their revenues, and outside the city will reduce travel prices by 30%. The Ministry of Transport and the Treasury say the changes will reduce prices for travel outside the city by only 6.7%, but will compensate drivers with a 13% increase in city travel prices. In addition, the inter-city price list will be canceled, and each trip will be made according to the meter.
However, the increase in travel prices in the city is mainly due to the addition of a new tariff, tariff 3, which will be charged on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. To date, two types of tariffs have been introduced in the taxi industry: day rate and night rate. Day Rate (Rate 1) is introduced from 5:30 am to 9:00 pm and nightly rate (Rate 2) from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am the next day as well as on weekends and holidays. Tariff 2 is expensive at 25% of Tariff 1 and Tariff 3 is expensive at 40% of Tariff 1.
At the same time, the starting fare for a taxi will be reduced from NIS 12.4 to NIS 10.48 and the addition will be canceled for a third and fourth passenger, which stands at NIS 5. As of January 2021, the addition will be canceled for the carriage of the passenger's hand luggage, which currently stands at NIS 4.4. Travel prices will be calculated at the same time and distance, and not one of them as the masses have worked so far, based on the average speed of travel.