By 2030, all Israeli bus routes will be put up for tenders, which Egged will have to bid for against its rivals. Following lengthy negotiations, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Finance, and the Egged bus cooperative have approved a new agreement for the operation of Egged’s public transportation routes. Transportation sector sources say that the agreement includes subsidies amounting to NIS 1 billion a year over 10 years. Egged will streamline and become a commercial company, while the Ministry of Transport will put all of its routes up for tenders by 2030 and 3,100 of Egged’s members will retire.
The new agreement provides Egged, whose business has not been profitable in recent years, with a new economic horizon. Unlike Egged’s previous agreement, the new agreement makes payment of subsidies to Egged contingent on actual bus rides and incentives for carrying passengers.
The purpose of putting all of Egged’s routes up for auction is to reduce the company’s current 35% market share in public transportation. The plan is to auction off 35% of Egged’s routes next year; in some areas where Egged is active, auctions for the routes will be published in the coming months in which all of the public transportation companies can participate: Superbus, Kavim, Dan, Metropoline, etc. Read more at GLOBES.
{Matzav.com Israel}
If the socialist state of Israel can do privatization then the supposedly capitalist USA can and should do it!
Privatize AMTRAK, Port Authority, MTA, NJ transit adn watch the improvements!