Carmelit - The Carmelit Today

The Carmelit Today

The small number of stations means that the Carmelit serves only a small part of Haifa – what were the important population and business centers at the time it was designed. Nowadays, the vast majority of Haifa's population does not live close to any of the stations, making it very lightly used. There have been talks of extending its tunnels to reach more population centers, but such an extension has not been done, primarily for fiscal reasons. The most widely used public transportation system in Haifa is Egged buses, which cover most of the city.

Haifa's comptroller wrote in his 2004 report (published in 2005) about the declining use of the Carmelit. According to the report, the Carmelit is used by only 2,000 passengers each day, and has been losing money ever since being reopened in 1992. The accrued losses between 1992 and 2003 are over 191 million New Israeli Shekels.

The Carmelit is the only subway in Israel. The Jerusalem Light Rail began operation in 2011, while major construction on Tel Aviv's light rail, much of which will be underground, commenced in 2011. In Haifa, an extensive BRT system called the Metronit is being built, which will have stops at a few Carmelit stations. It is hoped that this will increase ridership on the Carmelit after the Metronit system begins operating in 2012.