While the new Rav Kav smart card was to become the new currency for public transportation in the capital on November 1st, the company’s failure to sufficiently prepare has resulted in a delay, apparently until the end of the Gregorian year, December 31, 2011. Tens of thousands of people report they waited on lines for hours in the hope of being photographed and receiving a Rav Kav card, but there simply were no enough stations made available to accommodate the requests.
To obtain a card, one must be photographed and show one’s identity card.
Reports from the city’s universities were especially disturbing, as students waited countless hours in the hope of getting a card that recognizes their status and is therefore programmed to include a student discount.
According to MK (Shas) David Azoulay, who heads the Knesset Ombudsman Committee called the preparations for the implementation of the smart card “catastrophic”, and he worked to delay implementation of the card after the committee received thousands upon thousands of complaints.
Azoulay convened an urgent session of the committee towards extending the deadline until year’s end.
MK (Yahadut HaTorah) Yisrael Eichler questions why there is not a family card as is the case in other countries, as well as scanners to read the cards at all doors of buses and trains to prevent long lines to get onto the city’s public transportation.
Egged’s Nachum Yaakov welcomes the delay towards accommodating riders. He explains however that smart card stations began operating in June, and residents simply opted to wait to the last moment. Shai Eisenberg of the Citypass Company, the operator of the new light rail states stations were operational since April, but many, mostly the students, opted to wait until the last moment to get a card.
Azoulay rejected the statements, insisting the problem resulted for one reason only, the lack of preparedness by Egged and Citypass and the public is not to blame.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Why do people need to show ID and get photographed just to use public transportation?! That is an invasion or privacy if you ask me. Where I go is my buisness and no one elses. When I travel to israel for chanuka, I will pay cash.
WOW!!!!!
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU
I have a card, which I obtained with no problem or undue waiting. I have used it on several occasions (although now that the light railway is still free infrequently) without any problems.
#1, Israeli intracity buses have different fares for different types of people (regular, youth, senior citizen, recipients of various government benefits). It is obviously geneiva for someone who should be paying according to a higher schedule to use the card of someone who can pay according to a lower schedule. Moreover, the cards are examined when a person uses a transfer so apparently there is a way of preventing people from illegally giving their transfers to others.
If you choose to pay in cash, you cannot get the discount for multiple rides as the paper “cartisia” for multiple rides at a discount (1 free ride for adults or 1/2 price for children/students) will no longer be available. It’s not that you have to “show ID” – you simply have to enter the car into the card reader for it to see if you have prepaid rides available or if you need to buy more. The ID is simply presented at the time the card is issued since there are different prices for adults and children.
According to the new laws though, only citizens are entitled to the discounts though. No longer will passport-only-bearing residents of Israel (those who are here for a year or longer in school but age of 18 or under) be entitled to get a child rate on their bus/train fares. This is the law from the Transportation Ministry – spoke to them myself. All the children of families learning/living here long term are at present left with little recourse but to get their Rav Kav issued with adult rates for their children.
I have heard that one can register for an “anonymous” card, but I’ve not seen one.