With a gun between your legs you'll feel at home! (Egged Bus Cooperative)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Egged Bus Cooperative
Date:	05/01/09 (45 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Decent bus company

Disadvantages: Bit of a hassle with security, drivers on urban lines are notoriously grumpy and in a rus

Egged is currently the 2nd biggest bus company in the world with bus lines connecting various cities within Israel as well as running the urban lines in Israel and Varna in Bulgaria. In recent years they've expanded, first with their acquisition of lines in Varna and later by buying various lines in Poland including Warsaw, Bydgoszcz and Piaseczno amongst others.

Their new urban buses, air-conditioned Mercedes are incredibly comfortable although a friend of mine living in Israel who has a back problem complains that the air conditioning is a bit too strong and chills his back causing pain.

As for the Warsaw buses made but non ran by Egged, the buses look exactly the same but are different colours, the air conditioning is not as prevelant but despite no connection at all between the drivers - they have a very similar style, always in a rush even arriving ahead of their schedules and no one is quite sure why they do it in either places.

My first experience of an urban Egged bus in Israel was in Tel Aviv when most people who got on the bus waved their monthly card and I approached the rather orthodox looking bus driver for a ticket, he started yelling and I assumed he was angry at me until I realised he was shouting at the person behind me who had made quite an effort to themselves through a closing door and asked the driver to stop for her grandmother! All quite exciting but apart from that, nothing stood out as particularly different from your average bus journey.

As for the longer-distance buses there are plenty of them travelling throughout Israel and it seems that the soldiers get free transport so about 60-80% of passengers are soldiers. I hitchhiked around Israel but I saw plenty of them and the only time I took a bus was between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem where there was a mixture of young soldiers, regular passengers and a couple of foreigners (in this case, two american girls and myself).

It's a little bit strange to board a bus with the majority of the bus with a gun between their legs and I did keep my fingers crossed that no one had their gun unlocked and sneezed!

Egged were on time and apart from the hassle of security checks at the bus stations, it's a very decent service and not too expensive compared to the majority of Israeli prices.

Summary: Not bad