The Commute

Yair Assaf-Shapira

Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies 

www.jiis.org

In the future, the commute time between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv is supposed to be shorter than it is today. Will this have an effect on residential choices? Will more people opt to live in Tel Aviv and work in Jerusalem, or maybe vice versa? When planning for the future, it's usually a good idea to start with the present and look at the current trends.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics' Workforce Survey, in 2013 Jerusalem was the workplace of 293,000 workers, the majority of whom (224,700) also resided in the city. Most of the 68,600 workers commuting from outside of Jerusalem reside in its periphery (Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria districts). This sums up to 48,100 commuters. Meanwhile, 16,600 workers come to Jerusalem from the Center (Central and Tel Aviv Districts), and the rest commute from the South, the North, and Haifa. We may assume that people commuting from the Center make up most of the potential riders of the train and the upgraded Route 1 to Jerusalem.

What about travel in the opposite direction? Will the trains from Jerusalem in the morning leave full? Will they carry more passengers than those arriving from Tel Aviv? The number of workers residing in Jerusalem and commuting to localities outside of the city stands at 34,000, or about half of the number of people commuting into the city. Of this group, 10,300 work in the Center (2,900 of them in Tel Aviv proper), making up the potential riders from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. If the train were to open today, the Tel Aviv-to-Jerusalem direction would be the busier one. 

Car counts from roads connecting Jerusalem to the Center reveal a somewhat similar trend. From 6:00—10:00, some 9,300 cars entered Jerusalem via road no. 1 (the measuring point was located between Sha'ar Hagai and Shoresh; data are averages of the years 2012-13), and about 6,600 cars entered via road no. 443 (the measuring point was located between Modi'in and Giv'at Ze'ev; data are for 2015). Measuring these together, there are approx. 15,900 cars driving from the Center towards Jerusalem during these four hours. During the same hours, some 13,300 cars were traveling in the opposite direction on the same road segments. An opposite trend occurs in the afternoon, as commuters return from work. Between 14:00—18:00, some 17,200 cars were traveling in the direction of Tel Aviv, compared to 15,300 cars traveling in the direction of Jerusalem.

It appears that there is a substantial travel demand in both directions, a trend which stems from the fact that different people want different things. We can assume that this trend will continue to prevail and that the commute direction from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will remain stronger even when the commute time will be shorter. The number of commuters in both directions will likely grow substantially.

Jerusalem's Commuters

By Omer Yaniv

Morning. You’ve finished your coffee and sent the kids off to school. It’s time to go to work. But if you live in Jerusalem, your commute to work might not be so simple: Is your workplace within walking or biking distance from home? Or must you rely on a car or public transportation? As of 2013 about 61% of Jerusalem residents indicated, through the Central Bureau of Statistics Social Survey, that they have an inconvenient commute to work. One of the main reasons for this is the high percentage of Jerusalem residents who do not own a vehicle: 46%, compared with 33% for Israel at large, as of 2013. Thus, many of the city’s residents depend on transportation provided by their employer, on carpools, or on public transportation in order to reach their workplace. 

The percentage of Jerusalem residents who require more than half an hour to reach their workplace is 45%, significantly higher than the national average of 33%. By comparison, the percentage of Tel Aviv and Haifa residents whose work commute takes more than half an hour is 25% and 28%, respectively. These data reflect the efficiency of public transportation systems in various cities during morning rush hour, but they might also indicate the importance of workplace proximity to home in choosing a place to live, or the lack of employment options near the city. 

According to the 2008 census of the Central Bureau of Statistics, about 51% of Jerusalem’s residents commute to work by private vehicle (compared with 54% of Tel Aviv residents and 58% of Haifa residents), while 34% use public transportation or transportation arranged by the employer (compared with 28% of Tel Aviv residents and 27% of Haifa residents), and only 13% commute by bicycle or foot (comparable to the figure for Tel Aviv residents, and compared with 10% of Haifa residents). The census data also indicate that the average distance to work for Jerusalem District residents is slightly below the national average (11.4 km versus 13.6 km, respectively). Given that Jerusalem residents make greater use of public transportation, we can certainly point to a correlation between the long work commute time in Jerusalem and the extensive use of public transportation on the part of the city’s residents.

Jerusalem Workforce

Yair Assaf-Shapira

May 1st, which marks both International Workers' Day and Jerusalem Day, presents a good opportunity to take a look at the workforce in Jerusalem. According to new Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem, to be published on Jerusalem Day, there were 293,200 workers employed in the city in 2013. This number is higher than the number of workers in Haifa (167,000), and lower than the number in Tel Aviv (387,800).

The majority of those who work in Jerusalem (224,700) also reside in the city. However, about a quarter of them (23%, or 68,600 workers) live outside of Jerusalem and commute to the city for work. Of these, 30,600 live in Judea and Samaria; 17,500 in the Jerusalem District (adjacent to the city from the west, including Mevaseret Zion, Beit Shemesh, Abu Ghosh, Kiriat Yearim and the Mateh Yehuda regional council); 16,600 in Tel Aviv and Israel's center; and approximately 3,800 reside in the north, the south and in Haifa. While it is clear that more people commute from areas closer to the city, a significant number of workers also come from the center to work in Jerusalem. In comparison, the number of Jerusalemites who work in Tel Aviv is lower: 10,300 people.

Of the workers employed in Jerusalem, 154,400 are men and 138,800 are women. In general, men's commutes to work tend to be longer than those of women, and the greater the distance, the less likely women are to travel it. Indeed, most of the workers coming from outside the city to work in Jerusalem are men. From Tel Aviv and the center, for example, 9,700 men travel to work in Jerusalem as compared to 7,000 women. The areas closer to the city present a different picture: from Judea and Samaria, a similar number of women (15,400) and men (15,200) commute to Jerusalem, and from the Jerusalem District, more women (9,500) commute to Jerusalem than men (8,000).

This trend in terms of distance and gender also holds true regarding the commute in the opposite direction, i.e. for those who live in Jerusalem and work outside of the city. This direction is traveled by 24,300 men, and only by 9,700 women, but, like we see above, closer numbers of male (4,800) and female (3,100) workers commute to the areas closer to Jerusalem (Jerusalem District and Judea and Samaria), while almost four times more men (8,100) than women (2,200) travel to work in the center and Tel Aviv.

The new train line connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, currently under construction, may change the picture by increasing the number of workers traveling between the cities in both directions.