No metro price hikes until 2020: The prices of metro tickets will not be rising in 2018 despite the increases in fuel and energy prices, Transportation Minister Hisham Arafat tells Al Shorouk. He appears to refute statements he made last Saturday where he supposedly said that the pricing scheme will change in 4Q18. He added that prices will not change until 2020, when phase four of the Cairo Metro Line 3 is completed. He did repeat that the new pricing mechanism will be determined according to the distance traveled. This is standard protocol at this point for the Transportation Ministry to hint at price hikes, and then retract them when the populist masses cry out. We expect this show to happen over and over again before a sudden hike, as was the case with last March’s hikes.