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Egged Israel Transport Cooperative Society Ltd (), a cooperative owned by its members, is the largest transit bus company in Israel. Egged's intercity bus routes reach most Israeli cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim, and the company operates urban city buses throughout the country and the West Bank. It also operates in Poland and the Netherlands through a subsidiary. Egged provides about 55% of Israel's public transport services, employs 6,227 workers and operates a fleet of 2,861 buses (including 57 armoured buses). Egged buses make 25,267 trips every day, transporting about a million passengers over 720,073 km of roads.〔Figures from (Egged's website )〕 ==History== Egged was created in 1933 through a merger of four smaller intercity bus cooperatives in and around Tel Aviv. In 1942 it was joined with the bus company ''United Sharon''. In 1951, Egged merged with the northern ''Shahar'' bus company and the southern ''Drom Yehuda'' bus company, creating a cross-country public transportation network. In 1961 Egged merged with the ''Hamekasher'' bus company of Jerusalem.〔 〕 The name ''Egged'' (lit. ''Union'') was given to the cooperative by the Israeli poet Hayim Nahman Bialik. During the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973, Egged buses and drivers helped to reinforce the logistics system of the IDF and drove soldiers and food to the battlefields. In late 2002, Egged sued the Palestinian National Authority and its chairman Yasser Arafat for compensation of damages and loss of income due to terrorist attacks and suicide bombings on buses during the Second Intifada, claiming that the attacks had deterred passengers from taking buses. On February 3, 2003, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that Arafat has to pay Egged NIS 52 million in damages for the loss of one year's income and NIS 100,000 in court expenses. Despite deregulation attempts by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Egged is still Israel's largest bus company, is subsidized by the government, and still controls most of the inter-city bus lines in Israel. Netanyahu's attempts were cut short by a bus strike that brought the country to a halt, and Egged's workers and directors declared that any further attempts to undermine the company's monopoly will be met with similar measures. However, in recent years, many bus lines have begun to be operated by smaller bus companies such as Dan, Kavim, Superbus, Connex and others. In 2005, Egged and the Israeli Government reached an agreement under which by the year 2015 subsidization will be reduced to specific sectors, the disabled, soldiers and students, and for certain equipment. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Egged (company)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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