CAIRO — According to various news sites, Egyptian Minister of Transport Hani Dahi announced at a press conference on Dec. 29, 2014, that the fair price of a metro ticket, which currently does not generate any profits for the ministry, should be 25 Egyptian pounds ($3.40) instead of the current price of 1 Egyptian pound (14 cents).

During the same press conference Dahi said that the subsidy — which is 24 Egyptian pounds ($3.20) per ticket — cost the metro 130 million Egyptian pounds ($17.6 million) in losses last year, and they are expected to reach 180 million Egyptian pounds ($24.4 million) this year. This means that the daily loss of the metro is estimated at nearly 500,000 Egyptian pounds ($68,038) in 2015.

The statements concerned social media activists as to the probable price increase of up to 2,500% and prompted some of them, namely Samar al-Mehdi, Eslam Hammam and Ehab Abdallah, to launch a campaign called, “The Uprising of the Poor's Metro” on Dec. 30, 2014. This campaign called for a peaceful sit-in to be held on the same day the state announces the rise of metro ticket prices, regardless of the rate of increase.

Mehdi told Al-Monitor that the Ministry of Transport has many alternative solutions to avoid increasing ticket prices — it could rent indoor advertising screens, for instance.