A New Direction: The Evolving Story of Public Transportation in Palestinian Localities in Israel- Part 1

1.????Summary

How often do we get the opportunity to build something from scratch? How often do we have the chance to change for better many people mobility and accesses to opportunities? Education, career, health, leisure and other opportunities that can be reached by mobility.

That is the essence of the fascinating story of public transportation in Palestinian localities in Israel including: cities, towns and villages. In this article, I will describe the experience I had between 2010-2018 in managing the public transportation project for Palestinian localities. The project was highly ambitious and aimed to equalizing public transport service throughout the country.

First, I will provide a brief background on the Palestinian communities in Israel. Next, I will describe policy evolution over three periods, followed by complementary actions, and conclude with challenges and achievements.

2.????Background

1.9 million Palestinians live within the 1967 borders of Israel, making up 21% of the country's population, divided into sub groups: Muslims (83%), Christians (9%), Druze and Circassians (7.5%).

The public transportation project for Palestinian localities in Israel included 133 localities (with a Palestinian population greater than 50%), most of them are rural, and their total population amounts at about 1.3 million people. In other words, it excludes cities with a diverse population mix of Palestinians and Jews.

Due to the 1948 war, which led to the establishment of the State of Israel, there is a built-in tension between the Palestinian and Jewish populations in Israel. Although the Palestinian population has full civil rights, for many years they have suffered from underdevelopment and underfunding in a wide range of areas such as education, housing, health, employment, and transportation.

This article focuses on aspects related to public transport. In 2014, the motorization rate, which measures mobility by private vehicle, in the localities of Palestinians in Israel was 227 private vehicles per thousand people, compared with 287 vehicles per thousand for the entire Israeli population. Due to the lack of employment and industrial areas in Palestinian localities, more than half of them work outside their localities, and therefore, commuting rates are high and transportation accessibility is crucial.

Palestinian localities were rarely served by bus lines until the early 2000s, and those that did served them were rarely frequent. Since 2006, there has been increasing understanding within Israeli government ministries that socio-economic investments in Palestinian communities in Israel are a "win-win" that will enable the populations there to gain tools to fight poverty. The result is a series of decisions made by the Israeli government which place an emphasis on investments in Palestinian communities in Israel.

3.????Changes in Public Transportation Policy

Without the "magic square" of vision, optimism, determination, and patience, this journey may have taken a very different path. It is rare for significant changes to occur overnight, certainly not for highly budgeted policies that require extensive planning, significant investments in physical infrastructure, and complex implementation, like those in the field of transport and public transportation.

Equalizing public transport service throughout the country (metropolis not included) is radical. It's radical due to years of underbudgeting of both public transport service, as well as required infrastructure (such as roads, stops, end stations etc.). Although the objective of the project was ambitious, the change was gradual and required vision, optimism, determination, and patience, all four sides of the "magic square".

As of 2010, a series of government decisions have established investment policies focused on the Palestinians in Israel. Mostly out of political considerations, these decisions were allocated separately to the following sectors of the Palestinian communities in Israel: Arabs (Muslims and Christians), Bedouins, Druze and Circassians.

I believe that transportation policy decisions can be divided into three phases: the early phase from 2010 to 2015 and the second phase from 2015 to 2021 and the third phase from 2021 onward. The key difference between them is the policy approach.???

1.?The early phase between 2010-2015- was a period of setting the foundation and institutionalizing: learning the needs, adding service, especially in cities with more than 20,000 residents, and adding service via upcoming tendering.?In addition, a professional contact between the Public Transportation Division and the Ministry of Transportation Infrastructure Division was established. The importance of this connection can't be overstated, as lack of road infrastructure suited for buses is one of the most significant barriers to sufficient public transportation in Palestinian localities in Israel. It took a lot of vision and optimism in the early stages of the project, because we were so far from achieving our goal of equalizing public transport service throughout the country.

2.??The second phase from 2015 to 2020- had begun with a comprehensive analysis of public transport services offered in Palestinian localities and parallel Jewish localities. The gap captured from the data was the foundation of the budget required to equalize between them. In spite of the fact that data-driven policy is something that has become a standard method, the first time the Israeli government assessed the gap in public transportation between the Jewish and Palestinian populations was in 2015.

The government of Israel used this assessment to establish budgetary needs and goals, reflected in resolution No. 922, the five-year development plan for Arab communities, passed in December 2015, which allocated 100 million NIS annually for additional public transportation service. In other words, each year additional NIS 100 million was added to the national approved budget, summing up for a total of NIS 1.5 billion over five years.

It took a lot of determination and patience to turn this preliminary resolution into a reality, as we had to plan and execute a massive number of bus lines and rides in dozens of localities with ten different operators, in many cases in localities that had never had bus service before and lacked adequate infrastructure.

3.?The third phase started in 2021, with Government Resolution 550 and the "Takadum Plan" (progress in Arabic), on which I will elaborate in Part 2.

Additional initiatives helped the project reach its goals, gathering more grass-roots information regarding needs of mobility, increasing accessibility to passenger information about exciting and new lines through translation into Arabic and media campaigns, as well as building a long-term strategy. Here are few examples:

• Local public transportation representatives- were trained for the first time, in order to gather information regarding local needs and destinations.
• Translation of passenger information into Arabic- in stations and onboard passenger information systems on buses, for the first time.
• Media campaign- to increase travel and increase awareness of the service improvements made in each locality. The campaign included: flyers, billboards, digital media and an interactive trailer for youth and children's activities.
• Strategic plan for the next decade- was launched, along with comprehensive surveys to better understand the needs of mobility in the various localities.

4.????Challenges and Achievements

As a whole, the project was ambitious and groundbreaking, and as such it was challenging and difficult at times. Besides challenges that exist throughout the public transportation industry, such as the lack of drivers and delays in bus supply, there were a number of unique obstacles to overcome for this project. For example:

• Planning in the face of uncertainty- nationwide line planning in dozens of localities, on the basis of partial knowledge of the local mobility needs, and after long years of transport vacuums that prompted an array of alternative mobility solutions.
• Complex coordination- the need to coordinate the construction of public transportation infrastructure, as well as the purchase of buses, and the operation of those buses.

Alongside the challenges, some great changes had occurred in many people's lives. In order to assess it success, five parameters were formulated- see table 1 below.

A few accomplishments should be highlighted:

32 million kilometers of rides were added annually, as well as 27,000 additional weekly journeys, which are reflected also in the rising number of destination stations outside the locality. Additionally, the number of stations inside the Palestinian localities in Israel has increased, along with the addition of 9 more localities served by public transportation for the first time.

Table 1: Achievements in public transportation in Resolution 922

The cliché says that every long journey begins with a small step. This journey began with the "magic square" of: vision, optimism, determination, and patience. Although it has changed many people's lives, there is still much work to be done.

Part 2 of this mini-series will discuss:

• The implementation of the second phase plan, its achievements, and what still needs to be improved.
• What's next- the current third phase, which starts at the end of 2021, with Resolution 550 by the Israeli Government and what should be the next move.

Sources:

CBS, December 2020, Population of Israel on the Eve of 2021, https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/mediarelease/DocLib/2020/438/11_20_438b.pdf

Sharon Malki, July 2011, The place of public transportation in the entry of women from the Arab population in Israel into the labor force, https://milkeninnovationcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/45-HB-F-WEB.pdf

Sikkuy-Aufoq NGO, February 2021, Gaps in public transportation services between Arab and Jewish communities in Israel, Association,

https://www.sikkuy-aufoq.org.il/publications/%d7%a4%d7%a2%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%91%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%94%d7%aa%d7%97%d7%91%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%94-%d7%94%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%91%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%aa-%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%99%d7%a9/

Tamar Keinan, Dorit Bar, 2006, Mobility among Arab women in Israel, Kian Association, https://www.transportation.org.il/sites/default/files/pirsum/nayadutkayan.pdf

Gal Planning, Master Plan for Public Transportation for the Arab Population, Paper for the Ministry of Transportation, August 2019, https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/generalpage/master_plan_for_public_transportation_to_the_localities_of_arab_society/he/master_plan_vol_1.pdf

Government Resolution 550, October 2021, The Economic Plan to Reduce Gaps in Arab Society by 2026, https://www.gov.il/he/departments/policies/dec550_2021

Diana B. Greenwald Guy Grossman Amir Levi, August 2018, Does greater public transit access increase employment for the Israel-Arab Population? A Preliminary Analysis,

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcbg/files/95_final.pdf

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