Days before the Passover recess, the Knesset plenum approved in a first reading a bill to reduce the compensation amount for traveling without activating a public transport ticket.
Israeli transit relies heavily on a system in which tickets are bought before boarding a vehicle and activated by electronic scanners as a passenger embarks. These can be through paper tickets, prepaid cards known as Rav-Kavs, or mobile apps.
Although drivers rarely check that a fare is paid, inspectors frequently board transit vehicles and check that every passenger has a valid ticket, with stiff fines for those who do not. This practice is intended to counter the phenomenon of fare dodging where passengers will not activate a ticket to preserve the ticket for a different trip and ride for free during the current one.
The law was approved led by Knesset members Moshe Roth (UTJ), Avraham Betzalel (Shas), and Moshe Solomon (Religious Zionist Party). "The purpose of the law is to differentiate between those who tried to evade payment and those who paid but did not activate their ticket," explained Roth.
"There is no logic in imposing the same fine on those who paid and those who did not pay at all. This is an important step in the overall reform of the monitoring and enforcement system in public transport, aimed at making the system fairer to passengers and encouraging the use of public transit," he added.
The law seeks to establish that a passenger who is a holder of a temporary bus pass or is exempt from payment in public transport will pay a fine lower than the fare that a passenger who did not activate their ticket and does not have a ticket would pay.
The law also proposes to establish the obligation to activate travel tickets at the start of the journey, which currently exists for local train travel, for bus travel as well.
Roth stated: "This is good news for all users of public transport in Israel. There is no justification for imposing heavy fines on citizens who paid for the service but forgot to activate their ticket. These are not criminals but law-abiding citizens who simply made a mistake. I congratulate Knesset members Betzalel and Solomon on the partnership in promoting this important law that will significantly help the public."