Galei Tzahal News today reported that the Ministry of Transportation will be making significant changes into how the buses work with passengers paying fares while the driver is driving - that will no longer be the case.
Beginning in March they will be lessening over time the ability to pay with cash for your ride on the bus itself.
It will happen in stages with the first stage being the not allowing one to pay for and load a rav kav while on the bus - meaning you will only be able to pay, on the bus, for a single ride and will have to have your rav kav loaded in advance if you wish to use it.
The second stage will be that the drivers will not take money even for individual rides and you will only be able to use your rav kav that has been loaded with money or passes prior to getting on the bus.
I can see some difficulties with this, but all big changes to systems start off with difficulties.
Personally, I load my rav kav and my kids rav kavs using the rav kav app on my phone. However, many people do not have smartphones, and even among those that do, many phones do not have NFC capabilities.
I also have a little card reader that I sometimes use to load up the cards, but again, not everyone does and many people do not have Internet.
They are going to have to find a way to make it easy for people to load their rav kavs even if they do not have Internet. The Haredi community uses public transportation at much higher percentages than the average Israeli, and Internet and smartphone limitations will make this transition very difficult in these communities.
However, it is necessary. The situation on buses is very dangerous with drivers driving at full, or nearly full, speeds, and maybe even overfull speeds, while taking money and making change and printing receipts and keeping track of who paid and who did not yet pay. That is very dangerous. Especially in light of the new driving regulations recently announced by which a policeman can give a significant ticket for even the slightest distraction while driving - touching a phone, using WAZE, drinking coffee, etc, the bus drivers involvement with passengers paying while driving creates a very dangerous situation and if they find a way to minimize the drivers involvement in these matters while driving, it can only improve safety.
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