Cairo underground metro’s ticket prices to be increased next October

Egypt will increase the price of underground metro tickets and base it on the length of each commute next October after the completion of Cairo’s fourth metro line, Minister of Transportation Hesham Arafat said in a phone interview with Salet Al-Tahrir TV programme on Sada El-Balad channel on Saturday.

Arafat argued that the “low price of metro tickets has for years been one of the biggest problems facing the country’s transportation sector.”

Last March, Egypt doubled the price of standard metro tickets to 2 pounds.

Arafat had said in July that ticket prices for Cairo’s metro system are expected to see a gradual increase, eventually reaching 4 pounds by the last quarter of 2018.

Cairo’s fourth metro line will run from downtown to Cairo International Airport in the easternmost part of the city.

In recent years, Metro officials have urged the cabinet to increase ticket prices in order to stop financial losses.

Cairo’s underground metro system, launched in 1987, is one of the oldest in the Middle East and Africa.

Over 3.5 million of Greater Cairo’s 21 million residents rely on the metro in their daily commutes, according to estimates by the country’s National Authority for Tunnels.

Source: Ahram online