Talk:Public transit in Israel

See also: Talk:Bus travel in Israel/Archive

changed the 160-167 lines

The buss lines 160-167 are now listed as starting at the jerusalem CBS, which is where they now run from. I also put in a note saying that some bus lines are armored —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Zach in Israel (talk • contribs) 11:05, 27 August 2006 UTC

This article needs work

Just like our general coverage of bus travel is anything but satisfactory, this article needs serious work. It does not really know what it wants to be, it has strange sections like "notes" that consist of one half "stay safe" information (sadly needed given geopolitical circumstances in recent ever [sic!]) and a part that is explicitly said in comments to simply have been dumped from the Tel Aviv article. What should we do? Nuke it and start afresh? Get input from hebvoy? (I guess even if there isn't any article dedicated to that topic specifically, there are people knowledgeable enough or the information is present in other articles). But seriously, this article right now is a piece of work.... Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:11, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that was the rationale of the mass delete of route information just now. Yes, this needs work, but we need some subject matter experts for this (i.e. anyone who has used a bus in Israel. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:15, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Well give me the "research budget" needed and I'll gladly volunteer,... Joking aside, one of the most important questions would be: Are routes (and/or their numbers) reasonably stable over time? If so, we can have a list of them here and update it. If not, we should link to a good primary source (or several) if such a thing exists. I personally tend towards the latter. Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

For a start, see my comments below Ar2332 (talk) 08:22, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The international section needs work

It appears that part of it is written as a first hand account of a single ride in one direction Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Delete list of routes?

I am considering deleting the list of routes. It was always very incomplete, now it is somewhat outdated, and all of the information is now available in much more accessible form on websites and smartphone apps. Thoughts? Ar2332 (talk) 08:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

In that case, yes, I agree. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:25, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

"Lump Sum"? Seriously?

This is not the right term for ערך צבור. I'd call it "wallet" or "pay as you go" as it is named in every other place which implements a similar system. —The preceding comment was added by 217.132.107.105 (talk • contribs) 21:30, 12 December 2016 UTC‎

I think you're right. It's been changed. Ar2332 (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Country codes

First of all thanks y'all for the good work in making this article less of a piece of work and more useful and usable.

However, the current phone number format is not the way it should be, namely the country codes are missing (turn on "error highlighter" in the "gadgets" tab of your user preferences to see what I mean). Can we please fix this? Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

What's up with this large scale removal of text?

I cannot quite assess what the IP who did this is/was trying to achieve and whether they were right to do this, but can someone who knows more about Bus Travel in Israel shed some light on this? Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Speaking as a local bus rider, I would say:

1. Most of the changes here are good, so the changeset should not simply be reverted.
2. The measef/express/yashir classification is less relevant nowadays, since it does not appear in any electronic form, as far as I know. However, it may still appear in central bus stations. I think it should be restored, though possibly made more concise.
3. I think "Bus lines are designated by a 1- to 3-digit number. Urban and suburban lines usually have 1 or 2 digits, while intercity lines normally have 3 digits. There are exceptions, like intercity lines with 2 digits (those might have a preceding 0 to make it 3 digits), or suburban lines with 3 digits (the first digit may be 1 or 2, but not higher)." should be restored, while "The last digit of intercity lines often suggests its category. The fastest routes usually have digit 0 or 5, while the digits 1 and 3 are associated with slow lines. Digits 2, 4, 6 and 9 are usually express lines." should be deleted since it is significantly less true than it used to be.

Ar2332 (talk) 07:05, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. It's always good to have local knowledge. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:22, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Trains

Given that trains also work with Rav-Kav and we have a similar article on OV-Chipkaart in the Netherlands and given that this article already mentions trains in passing every once in a while, should we change its title to public transit in Israel and add more trains content? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good Ar2332 (talk) 21:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Why is it "Public Transit in Israel", and not "Public transit in Israel" per Wikivoyage:Naming conventions? Public transit isn't a proper noun. Ground Zero (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

If you feel like moving it, go ahead. I for one consider it weird to upper case an adjective but not the noun it describes. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:06, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

"Public" is capitalized because it is the first word of the article title. This is standard. Capitalizing a noun that follows the first word of a sentence is not done in English. Finding something "weird" isn't a good reason for making a style error and leaving it for someone else to clean up. Ground Zero (talk) 06:18, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

What exactly do you expect me to answer to that personal attack? As far as I know any speaker of the English language has the exact same zero authority to set or change its rules as any other and certainly anybody is entitled to find some or all of the ways English is written today weird. Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:07, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

You're as entitled as anyone to find the rules of English weird, but you can also be expected, as a long-time contributor, to look past that and respect the rules and styles adopted by the Wikivoyage community. Choosing to "do your own thing" and ignore those rules and styles shows contempt for the Wikivoyage community. That is disruptive behaviour. My comments relate to your behaviour in Wikivoyage, not to you as I don't know anything about you aside from how you behave here. Calling someone on how they interact with the community is entirely appropriate. Name-calling, such as you have done, is not. So stop playing the victim here and hiding behind spurious claims of "personal attacks". That doesn't wash. Ground Zero (talk) 13:15, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Come on now, Hobbitschuster, you know very well that we can't freelance matters of agreed-upon house style in one or two articles just because we personally feel like it. Sentence-style capitalization is a basic part of Wikivoyage house style. If it really bothers you so much, you need to start a discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Capitalization and watch everyone tell you it's a waste of time to argue about such small matters or to consider changing every article to title capitalization. I guess now you'll claim what I posted is a "personal attack", is that right? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Given that I used the all lowercase form above, I think it's fair to say I don't care that much about that particular thing. What I do care about is the attempt by Ground Zero to let me appear as a serial violator of policies who has a personal vendetta against him. I do not have a vendetta against anybody. But I do think it's harmful when people mess with stuff they don't understand as certain copy edits have unfortunately been... If "streamlining" a sentence makes it say something different, which, given the facts, is not true, maybe said "streamlining" was overall a Verschlimmbesserung. At any rate, I hope we can stop this bickering and move to adding more train information into this article. I'm sure Ground Zero is an expert on this, or at least curious enough to have looked at some online resources, why would he be such an active participant in this talk page discussion otherwise? Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:41, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

No-one is expected to know all of our policies. Given our history, I decided to raise this on the talk page instead of just moving the article on case you had a valid reason for capitalizing it the way you did. It turns out it was a mistake on your part. Everyone makes mistakes, including you. When you or someone else points out my mistakes, I fix them. I never tell someone "If you feel like moving it, go ahead." That's lazy and disruptive.

I have never accused you of having a personal vendetta against me. You have accused me of having a personal vendetta against you.

I have never made personal attacks against you. You have made personal attacks against me.

You may think that Wikivoyage policies don't matter and you can ignore them, but the rest of the community wrote them, so we disagree with you. You refuse to accept the English-language (and Wikivoyage) way of formatting prices in Euros, and now capitalization. It is this behaviour that creates the need for others to track your edits to fix your errors. Don't make us do that.

Trying to get you to behave in line with community norms is not "bickering". It is about making Wikivoyage suck less. Ground Zero (talk) 22:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Article update

I've went over and updated much of the information on fares and ticketing. Thoughts? --Arseny1992 (talk) 19:30, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Nice work. I've made some formatting corrections, and tried to simplify confusing sentences. If I've misunderstood what you've written, please correct me. Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 20:49, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Regarding stored value credits, I've never heard of a system that is not currency-based, so I incorrectly assumed that the units were shekels. Sorry for that mistake, and thanks for fixing it. The article doesn't make this clear, and it should, so that readers don't make the same mistake I did. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 22:18, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Using currency symbols when referring to stored value balance denominations and fare deductions that use this stored value, versus amounts to pay to charge it, is to be avoided, because stored value is actually not shekels as it has a different credit vs shekel value per each passenger profile per the profiles table that I added there, which should be clear enough. The same table is also posted in all the FAQs regarding stored value on all transit operators websites.

Even if some operators' ticket receipts and apps (even the official one) refer to it as shekels (where it says 999.9₪) - it isn't, and is a coding error, intentional or not. As for this specific pic album linked, the profile is National Insurance Beneficiary, which means this 999.90 of balance equal to ₪669.933. There is a recharge log on the second pic in the album: total paid is the leftmost column, while amount to receive is the central column. Reading bottom to top, this means the initial balance before these three charge operations, was 7.10 of the National Insurance Beneficiary profile. A first ₪300 load added 450 (457.10), then again (907.10), then only a ₪61.87 load was possible, that added 92.80, thus bringing the total value to 999.90 max while not causing fractions in it, ensuring transfers still be working.

Say you have standard profile (is default on any card including anonymous) loaded ₪30 and thus received 37.50 of balance assuming the initial balance was 0. You then go pay a fare on the bus using that balance, say 5.90. The result of that deduction will be 31.60, which means the ride costed you ₪4.72 when "translated" to money, because you already got the profile discount for the balance when you loaded it (and the above 999.90 case means a 5.90 fare equals to ₪3.953). There was never any Rav-Kav nor passenger profile where the charged balance that you receive would be equal to the money you paid for (no discount). --Arseny1992 (talk) 22:53, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Arseny1992, I appreciate and applaud what you are trying to do with the article. When I wrote that I didn't understand that the stored value credits are not shekels, I meant that. I am a native English speaker. Many of our readers are not native English speakers, so it makes sense to explain things clearly. It's great that you understand it, but if you prefer to leave out an explanation of this, then other readers will, like me, not understand how the system works. That isn't a good way to write a guide. Ground Zero (talk) 04:41, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Just attempted doing so, hopefully it get clearer, together with all the other information of the section. --Arseny1992 (talk) 06:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the infobox and the added text make it clear. Thank you. Ground Zero (talk) 06:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Passes

So the sixty shekel "whole country pass" that Israel Railways offers is cheaper than one way fare to Eilat. Given that there's no rail line to Eilat, am I to understand that this "whole country pass" does not actually cover Eilat? What about week or month passes? Can a week "whole country pass" be used like Interrail taking buses and trains whenever one feels like it? This sounds like something a certain subset of travelers would be interested in... Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:39, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

The link to the "entire country day pass" also has the coverage maps for that pass, and it does not include southern Negev and Eilat, which are included in a pass such as this one, although that overlap the Beer Sheva regions on both.

You are free to use zonal passes in any variant (day, week, month, 30 day, semester, annual) to ride any transit within the included zones, unlimited as long as the pass is valid, and that is stated so in the appropriate section.

There is no week whole country pass: weekly passes weren't included in the inter-regional reform and do not exist in inter-regional variants. Although a month variant of the "Entire country" pass do exist and cost ₪900.

Passes only exist for Standard and Senior citizen profiles only (with only a few exceptions for youth profile). Which mean students or national insurance beneficiaries have to use standard profile passes, or calculate the stored value fares which is often comes to be cheaper than the standard pass value. Although students also have semestrial and annual passes variants for all zonal passes that exist in a day pass variant. --Arseny1992 (talk) 23:19, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Just clarified it a bit more. --Arseny1992 (talk) 02:02, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Zoning maps

Given that the zone map links currently in the guide (references to zoning of periodic passes and, more importantly, the zoning of 90-min transfers), that I added as links to the text), lead to Google MyMaps, that may pose some licensing issues, even though the KMLs originate from MOT's GTFS server (as per the html comment tags), and thus a public domain government service, is there somebody with sufficient skills for to import these map zoning KML layers here as dynamic maps map data geoshapes? --Arseny1992 (talk) 07:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

FTT and guide

Given how nicely this article has come along, what's missing for guide status and being a featured travel topic? Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:07, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Content-wise the article does definitely cover all the aspects I can come to think of when coming to public transit. For FTT, I think some sections could use a few photos. Maybe also some 3rd level headings need to be elevated to 2nd level headings, and vice versa. --Ypsilon (talk) 17:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Rollback of guide updates

@SelfieCity: mind please to explain your rollbacking please? --Arseny1992 (talk) 19:27, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

It must have been an accidental rollback. I didn't even know it had taken place at the time. Feel free to continue editing, as there's nothing wrong with your edit as far as I can see. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Copyedits to improve readability

Without having been to Israel, I have boldly edited this to try to make it easier to read. There were many sentences that were long and confusing, and sometimes there was excessive detail that interfered with conveying information. If I have got anything wrong, I hope that someone will correct it. Ground Zero (talk) 04:16, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

WV:BF and WV:TOUT

Given this recent edit, it arises questions about whether we should write like this, giving a particular app more favor in such manners? Personally, I find the Israel section of Moovit not as accurate as it should have been for an all-in-one app like this, in ways such as it can at times suggest weird roundabout transfers in planning and schedules up to the point that I heard some drivers at times joke around "wait for a line operated by Moovit company" (of course such a thing does not exist) when the line he's driving arrives at a stop on a time not designated in the app (but is on-time per official schedules), however the passenger still attempts to complain "but the app said that you should have been passing this stop 10 minutes in/ago!". Thoughts? --Arseny1992 (talk) 18:20, 18 September 2023 (UTC)