Minister of Transport Hesham Arafat announced on Thursday that train fares will be raised after the end of the current academic year.
He added in a press statement on Thursday that the ticket price increase will resume after the end of the current school year because a large number of students use trains daily.
He pointed out that the Egyptian railway carries about 850,000 passengers a day, 40 percent of them are students and employees. Arafat stressed that ministry takes into account social dimensions before making any decisions.
Arafat said in January that as part of an agreement with the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI), the ministry will construct 300 new trains, and ticket prices will increase at the end of the 2018 fiscal year to fund the project.
He added that the country’s railway services will be upgraded by June 2019, after the ministry updates the electronic signal and the railway system, with costs estimated to reach LE16 billion and LE54 billion, respectively.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
