For years, an Egyptian over sixty only had to show a national identity card to the conductor to pay half fare on a public bus. Now, securing the same discount can mean obtaining a prepaid card, topping it up, monitoring its balance and tapping it twice. Otherwise, passengers pay full fare. What was presented as a discount has become another burden for pensioners, several of whom told Zawia3 they were surprised to find themselves paying more.
In mid-July, the Cairo Public Transport Authority announced a new system pricing journeys by the number of stops for prepaid-card holders. On ordinary buses, a short trip costs EGP 5 for a quarter ticket, EGP 8 for half a ticket and EGP 13 for the full route. On air-conditioned buses, full fare is EGP 25 and half fare EGP 18. Cash-paying passengers receive no distance discount, even for one stop. The announcement described the card as provided without an upfront charge at a nominal EGP 80 cost, collected in EGP 5 instalments from tickets. It can be topped up with EGP 50 through the Tawaly app, on buses or at authorised outlets.
Authority instructions for discounted travel on air-conditioned routes require veterans, war victims and their companions, military personnel and people over sixty to obtain a dedicated card from Tawaly outlets at Abbasiya, Abdel Moneim Riad, Ahmed Helmy, Ataba, the Hadayek depot, Cairo Airport, First Settlement, Bulaq al-Dakrour or al-Munib. Passengers without that card pay full fare.
The authority subsequently denied abolishing half fares or exemptions on ordinary routes. It said free and discounted travel for people over sixty, veterans and military personnel remained in place, and that those over seventy and holders of veterans’ or war-victims’ cards were fully exempt on ordinary routes without needing a card or paper ticket.
A Half Fare That Disappeared
There is a wide gap between those official denials and experiences on buses. While authority statements say paper half tickets remain available to military personnel over sixty for all stops on ordinary buses without a card, older civilian passengers tell another story.
Samir Youssef, a 69-year-old pensioner, boarded a bus from Warraq al-Arab to Abbasiya. The driver told him half tickets no longer existed and payment required a card sold by the driver. Samir paid EGP 50 for a card he expected to carry that balance. The driver then inserted it in the machine and added another EGP 50, making the balance EGP 100. Two other passengers returned their cards after having understood that only EGP 50 was required.
Samir was then charged the full EGP 13 fare because the driver had not explained that he needed to tap again on leaving so the number of stops could be calculated. He says the new instructions harmed older people by tying half fare to distance through a “blind system” that ignores the passenger’s category, “whether a child or a hundred-year-old man.” Someone travelling six stops pays half fare, whereas his twelve-stop journey costs full fare despite his entitlement to a discount. Had he known, he says, he would have bought a full ticket instead of a card or taken the metro for a half-price EGP 6 ticket. “I never topped it up again. It added financial burdens and upset me.”
Essam Afifi, 68, had a similar experience travelling from the Settlement to Tahrir. The driver said half tickets had been abolished from July 15 and anyone without a card had to pay full fare. Essam paid EGP 10 rather than his usual half fare, as did older passengers around him. During Zawia3’s field reporting, others confirmed that drivers had told them the discount was abolished for passengers without cards, forcing them to pay in full.
An authority driver, who requested anonymity, said many drivers no longer had half tickets and some carried only full-price tickets, following instructions whose reasons he did not know: “They are decisions belonging to the authority and its board chairman.” He believes the aim is to move older passengers onto cards like everyone else, but says the mechanism does not serve their interests. “There is something called serving citizens. Half tickets should remain subsidised.”
He considers the system more suitable for new air-conditioned buses. Frequent breakdowns on older vehicles create tension when passengers pay a high fare only for the bus to stop working. On a new bus, he says, passengers “can feel confident they will arrive quickly because the service is much better.”
Disappearing Balances and Faulty Machines
Complaints went beyond losing half fare to disappearing balances and machines withholding change. Abdo Qenawy, 68, normally travelled five stops from Triumph to the airport. After being told the discount had ended, he bought a card from the driver for EGP 50. When he tried to tap it, the driver said the balance had run out. He added EGP 20, then another EGP 20 when it apparently ran out days later. A station supervisor subsequently told him he had had EGP 8 remaining, which did not appear until the balance was handled through the system. It then showed EGP 28.
Abdo says the machine initially deducted a full EGP 16 fare, then calculated EGP 5 for the five stops when he left and returned EGP 11. An employee at another station told him the card cost EGP 100 and every passenger had to add EGP 50. When he complained that the remainder did not appear on the screen, the employee said the machine was faulty. Abdo discovered a higher balance than the driver had stated and asked who bears the cost of machine failures.
Previously, he travelled from Heliopolis to the airport for a half-price EGP 10 ticket regardless of stops. Now, he says, he pays like any other passenger: half fare depends on a limited number of stops, and travelling to the end of an air-conditioned route costs the full EGP 25.
Younger passengers also encounter failures. Mohamed Sayed, 30, a security employee, has used a card on the air-conditioned bus from Demerdash to Fifth Settlement since February. He initially paid EGP 18, but from June the machine charged EGP 25 on departure rather than returning EGP 7. He did not know why, and others with the same experience did not recover their money. Tawaly’s hotline was not working when he called to complain. This reduced his enthusiasm for cards he had hoped would lower his EGP 1,300 monthly transport bill.
Technology itself creates other difficulties. Mahmoud Sameh, an employee at al-Azhar’s headquarters, installed Tawaly and topped up through his bank card, then discovered his phone did not support NFC. His credit was left unusable. He found the company’s hotline out of service and contacted its social media page without having the problem resolved.
Ahmed Ramadan, a 62-year-old pensioner, complains that drivers do not understand the system and have not been trained. He only learned he needed to tap on boarding and leaving when a Tawaly outlet employee explained it, preventing him from paying full fare. He says buses can take one or two hours to arrive, forcing him onto other shared transport to avoid missing medical appointments at Saray al-Qubba clinics. He pays ordinary fares there and receives no discount.
Responding to complaints about too few buses and long waits, the authority’s public relations director said its planning and traffic department reviews each area’s needs by population density. He asked affected passengers to submit formal complaints through the authority’s page so additional services could be considered. He said an opinion-monitoring unit surveys drivers about obstacles and proposals. Drivers requested a unified electronic payment card on all buses instead of cash, especially after the card cost was reduced to EGP 80: EGP 50 as the initial balance and the remainder in instalments. This account of the charge differs from the instalment description cited earlier in the report.
Engineer Shaimaa Ahmed Ali, communications department director and project manager, told Zawia3 that the NFC requirement applied to the old app version. From July 15, the company made QR-code payment available for phones without NFC. Passengers scan from bottom to top, the full fare is deducted and “cashback” is returned on leaving. She said credit is valid for one year and the card for two. Passengers affected by faulty machines can seek balance recovery through the hotline or WhatsApp, available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout the week.
Ali acknowledged a hotline problem was being addressed. A lost card means losing its balance because it does not record identifying information. The company is developing this service, she said, and provides continuous driver training through a technical engineer at each garage who instructs them before their services begin.
The Authority’s Denial and the Legal Entitlement
Mohamed Abu al-Yazid, the authority’s public relations director, denied abolishing half fare for people over sixty. He suggested complainants might be a small number and attributed their experiences to possible driver violations, which would be investigated and penalised. At the same time, he said people over sixty and veterans now have dedicated cards and can only obtain the discount by collecting one from the listed outlets. People over seventy use an authority subscription card, he said.
Ali similarly said passengers over sixty must obtain a dedicated card after their identity and age are checked, allowing half or quarter fare according to distance. She said no card is required for people over seventy. These accounts differ from one another and from the exemption introduced in 2020, which required only showing a national identity card to the conductor to ease the burden on older people.
Asked why the identity-card exemption could not continue, Abu al-Yazid cited the absence of conductors and the difficulty of a driver checking cards while driving. He added that the pass for people over seventy costs up to EGP 150 and must be renewed annually.
The underlying problem appears longstanding. In 2020, following social media complaints about conductors denying older passengers their entitlements, former authority chairman Major General Rizk Ali also denied abolishing half fare for people over sixty or full exemption for those over seventy. He said a conductor violating the rules would be suspended for three months and citizens could make urgent complaints to secure disciplinary action.
Article 27 of Law No. 19 of 2024 provides older people with a partial exemption from the cost of state-owned public transport, with the competent ministry covering the exemption under rules set by the implementing regulations. Article 46 separately penalises a person entrusted with caring for an older person who neglects their duties or appropriates the older person’s financial assistance, with up to a year’s imprisonment, a fine of EGP 1,000–10,000, or either penalty. The article on caregivers is a separate provision; the report does not establish that it automatically applies to every bus-fare dispute.
The issue affects a significant population. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, Egypt had 9.8 million older people in 2025, or 9.1% of its population, compared with 9.3 million and 8.8% in 2024.
For Ashraf Abu al-Fotouh, 41, a securities trading manager, the experience was different. He used to take the bus from Bab al-Khalq to al-Isaaf and pay full fare despite travelling only half the route, because some conductors refused a half ticket. When he first requested one under the new system, he was told cash payment had ended. Thinking the driver was being difficult, he left and boarded another bus, only to hear the same explanation.
He then used a card. EGP 13 was deducted, and EGP 8 returned on departure, leaving EGP 5 for four stops, plus another EGP 5 instalment towards the card. EGP 40 remained from the initial top-up. He believes the system saves him money and ended arguments with conductors about half tickets and change because the payment no longer depends on their discretion.
The system therefore eased one 41-year-old passenger’s journey while burdening people over sixty. At the time of reporting, the authority had not clearly announced that older civilian passengers needed a dedicated card to activate half fare, despite announcing military personnel’s entitlements. What once required an identity card in hand now depends on obtaining and topping up another card, monitoring it, a machine working correctly and a driver knowing that it must be tapped twice.
