I decided to make an accounting of my experience on the bus to track that incredible Israeli technology and affluence that I keep hearing about.
I'm not looking for minor flaws, such as one of the window breaking devices not being on the wall or the garbage can not being present but for nuisances and inconveniences that meaningfully impact the ride.
11/30/2025 #1 Doors won't close. Driver wrestles with it. They finally close making a huge noise.
#2 Door to electric panel behind the driver is open. Won't close. All kinds of weird scary wires are exposed in the front seats.
12/1/2025 #1 Car reader doesn't work in any of the machines except the one by the driver. First stop button doesn't work.
12/2/2025 #1 Bus seems to have no shock absorbers and makes a horrible screeching noise at every turn. First stop button doesn't work. Kid tries to get on with bicycle. Driver yells at him.
#2 Bus breaks down. We all have to leave after several jolting attempts to restart the bus while cars honk at us.
#3 Replacement bus stop button doesn't work. Trouble closing middle door, makes horrible noise.
12/3/2025
#1 Bus passes by with its line sign saying 0, which is not a line #. This happens often. I have no idea which bus line it was.
#2 Doors opened normally, card reader worked, but the stop button was literally ripped off the wall. I had to get up and find another as the bus whipped around the traffic circles. Moreover, the bus was packed to the gills with school children who were packed in like sardines. Note, this is not in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv but in a town outside of Jerusalem which you live in to avoid congestion. Imagine cramming into a bus in Charlotte, North Carolina.
#3 None of the card readers worked except the one up front. Stop button didn't work.
Bus checker came on, like they do for nearly every ride, but his reader couldn't read my card. I showed him a paper receipt that fortunately I had because only the card reader by the driver worked and that's the only one that gives a receipt.
12/4/2025
Needed to reload my card but the card readers that the government sells so you can do it at home don't work.
#1 Stop button didn't light up the stop sign in front, so I don't know if the driver got word of the stop. Like all intracity buses, there seems to be no shock absorbers. It's a rough ride on rough roads. It's nothing like those comfy buses in New York City.
#2 No problems other than the lack of shock absorbers on the uneven roads.
Tried to reload my card at the machine, but it wouldn't read my card. Might need a new one.
12/5/2025
Tried reloading my card at a shul but the machine has been removed. Went to the Rav Kav store. Fortunately it was open. Waited 15 minutes, then had to convince the grumpy Israeli woman that I really needed one. She relented and I got a new card. Waited for the bus. A bus passed with a line number on it, but as it passed the driver held up both hands to tell us that really the bus line was a different number. So say the electric sign on the bus said it was line 7, the driver held up 2 fingers in one hand and 4 in the other to say that really it was 24. He did this while driving passed us. One guy who was waiting must have really needed that bus because he went running after it.
#1 My bus came after 20 minutes and I went on a 20 minute ride to a store to pick up a package. 17 stops and the usual rickety ride, but otherwise the bus seemed to work.
12/6/2025
#1 Card readers don't work. Only the one by the driver works
#2 Line indicator doesn't work and driver didn't bother, as they never do, to use the mechanical one.
12/7/2025
#1 None of the card readers work.
#2 Card checker couldn't read my card.
12/8/2025
#1 Line indicator is lit up but after driver makes a "wrong" turn, I find out it indicated the wrong line!
#2 Stop button doesn't work. Second stop button works
So I'm going to stop there. I would say that 95% of the time, some major issue was at a play with the buses in this so-called advanced economy of Israel. And every bus was rickety, noisy, bumpy. Have you ever ridden on a bus in Switzerland or Germany or the USA? Those are nice smooth rides. Israel is a second world country. You see it with the buses and 100 other things.
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