New fuel prices: More expensive commutes
Ahmed Morsy, Thursday 11 Jul 2019
Transportation fares increased from 10 per cent to 25 per cent in Cairo and Giza governorates after a recent fuel hike, reports Ahmed Morsy


Following last week’s fuel hike, there has been an increase in transportation fares between 10 per cent and 15 per cent. Cabinet Spokesman Nader Saad said the new fares have been printed on banners and hung on stations.

Saad said that stickers with the new tariffs have been pasted on microbuses and taxis to let commuters know of the increase.
Cairo Governor Khaled Abdel-Aal stressed that the increase will not exceed 15 per cent whether on public buses, microbuses or white taxis.

Taxi metees will now start from LE7 instead of LE6 for a 1km journey, with each subsequent kilometre priced at LE3 instead of LE2.5.

The price of public buses increased by LE1 on average.

The fares of privately operated microbuses in Cairo and Giza governorates increased by 20 per cent.

Abbas Mourad, spokesman for Mwasalat Misr which operates smart buses and minibuses under the supervision of the Transportation Ministry, announced that the board of directors decided to increase the price of its minibus from LE8 to LE10.

Mourad added that they decided to keep the price of the smart bus tickets unchanged at LE15.

Ride-hailing company Uber also announced an increase in the prices of its services in Egypt this week. According to a statement, it set the base fare for UberX in Cairo and Alexandria at LE7.25 and LE7 respectively.

The base fare of Uber Select service, which is only available in Cairo, is LE12.

Ride-hailing company Careem also increased its base fare in Cairo to LE9 instead of LE7.7, an increase of 17 per cent, and the price for each additional kilometre covered became LE3.19 instead of LE2.8. The base fare in Alexandria became LE8 instead of LE6.94, and LE3.43 for each additional kilometre instead of LE3.

Cairo underground metro tickets remained the same after having increased a month earlier.

However, tickets in Cairo’s third metro line, from Ataba Square to Heliopolis, increased from LE3-LE7 and LE5-LE10 when the ministry opened three new stations on the line a couple of weeks ago.

Last month’s increase did not affect the price of tickets on the other two metro lines.

The rise in transportation fees came following the increase of gasoline and diesel fuel prices on 5 July. In a statement issued by the Ministry of Petroleum, the cost of 95 Octane gasoline jumped to LE9 from LE7.75 per litre. The 92 Octane gasoline saw an increase from LE6.75 to LE8 per litre whereas gasoline 80 increased to LE6.75 from LE5.5 per litre.

Diesel fuel increased from LE5.5 to LE6.75 per litre while a metre of natural gas for vehicles increased to LE3.5 from LE2.75.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 11 July, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline:More expensive commutes

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/337725.aspx