After persistent service failures and a drivers' strike: Tnufa may lose routes

The crisis at the bus company Tnufa is escalating. The Ministry of Transport is considering removing routes from the company and even initiating a process to review the revocation of its operating license, following persistent service failures, according to a summary of an internal meeting of the National Public Transport Authority.

The head of the authority, Idan Moalem, demanded that all sanctions available to the state be examined, stating that there is no longer room to wait given the ongoing harm to passengers. Among the options he raised were an urgent convening of the tender committee to remove routes from Tnufa and the initiation of a process to cancel or revoke the operating license. The authority's legal counsel requested that other procedures be exhausted before the expropriation of the routes. It was explained that removing routes requires an alternative operator capable of absorbing them. Therefore, in the first stage, the authority ordered the completion of the hearing process with Tnufa and the setting of requirements, goals, and timetables for correcting the deficiencies. If the company does not meet them, the option of taking more severe measures will be brought to the tender committee.

The move comes after a series of events that exacerbated the conflict between the company, the state, and local authorities. Recently, about 400 Tnufa drivers went on strike, citing claims of deficiencies in bus maintenance and uncertainty regarding their wages and employment conditions. Following this, the heads of the authorities in Samaria demanded that the Ministry of Transport expropriate the company's routes, alleging persistent service failures. In the background, there are also claims by the workers' committee, represented by the Histadrut, that the maintenance status of the buses compromises the safety of drivers and passengers, and that cash flow difficulties affect the service.

Ariel Mayor Yair Shtabun claimed that the local authority has been warning the Ministry of Transport about Tnufa's service problems for three years, and since 2024, letters demanding intervention have been sent to the ministry. After the strike, other authorities in Judea and Samaria and the Beit Shemesh municipality joined the demand. According to data presented by the authorities from the Ministry of Transport's metrics, Tnufa cancelled hundreds of trips in the second half of 2024 and throughout 2025, and in the first half of 2026, its non-performance rate was about 5%, which was defined as exceptional compared to other companies.

The transport officer in Judea and Samaria, Israel Apriat, noted that Tnufa suffers from a shortage of about 50 buses, and even during the tender, the company's ability to meet its obligations should have been examined, partly due to a gap of about 70 million shekels between Tnufa's bid and other bids. The director of the implementation division at the authority, Golan Yirmiyahu, noted that there are also significant management difficulties, and adding vehicles alone will not solve the company's failures.

At the same time, the bus company is on the shelf. Tnufa's owners — Maya Tours, Eastlink Linker, China Motors, and the Shasha Group — are conducting negotiations for its sale, with Metropoline being among the companies that have expressed interest. From the authority's perspective, even a future deal should not erase the problems. It will be possible to condition the approval of the change of control on the buyer assuming all the company's debts and obligations, completing the shortage of buses and infrastructure, and presenting a binding plan to improve the service.

Tnufa stated:

"In recent months, an ongoing dialogue has been taking place between the Ministry of Transport and Tnufa, in which the company was required to demonstrate improvement in meeting schedules and service performance volumes. Performance data in the recent period indicates a consistent and ongoing trend of improvement. Tnufa continues to work intensively to further improve the level of service."