Metronit

Vehicles

The Metronit consists of 120 18.75-meter long high-capacity buses on three routes, with a capacity of 120-140 passengers per bus. Some of the buses operate with hybrid engines (six Phileas buses manufactured by APTS) and are currently being evaluated for more widespread use. The rest of the buses are conventional MAN Lion's City GL Diesel powered buses. The network is a total of 60 km (37 mi) in length - of which 40 km (25 mi) are dedicated roadways.

The Metronit is unique in Israel in that it uses bi-articulated buses on specific routes. The choice of this mode of transport was due to the advantage of limited damage to the environment during construction, increased capacity on existing roads, and reduced operating costs compared to a standard bus or light rail line.

Commencement of operations

The Metronit began testing on August 2, 2013, and passenger operations commenced on August 16, 2013. As the first BRT system in Israel, there were initially many operational problems, caused mainly by a lack of priority at traffic lights, insufficient bus drivers and more passengers than anticipated. To promote the service, there was initially a period of free ridership that ended on December 23, 2013.

In May 2015, the daily ridership on the Metronit was 92,000 – with a total of 30 million passengers using the system in the first year.