---
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
  - en
  - he
pretty_name: Jerusalem Air Quality — Weekday vs Shabbat
size_categories:
  - 1M<n<10M
tags:
  - air-quality
  - environmental
  - jerusalem
  - israel
  - time-series
  - shabbat
  - sabbath
  - pm25
  - no2
  - environmental-monitoring
configs:
  - config_name: default
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: data/readings.parquet
---

# Jerusalem Air Quality — Weekday vs Shabbat

Twelve months of 5-minute-resolution air-quality readings from **12 monitoring
stations across Jerusalem**, formatted for analysing the weekday vs Friday vs
Shabbat (Saturday) pattern in urban pollution.

The motivation: Jerusalem has a uniquely strong weekly traffic cycle — many
streets in observant neighbourhoods empty out from Friday afternoon to
Saturday night. This dataset is intended to support quantitative work on
the resulting air-quality signal.

## Source and attribution

All readings come from the **Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection
(המשרד להגנת הסביבה)** national air-quality monitoring network, accessed
through the public portal at <https://air.sviva.gov.il/>.

The MoEP / sviva.gov.il site is the canonical source. This dataset is a
convenience repackaging of that public data into a tidy parquet file with
some derived columns (local time, day-of-week, Shabbat/Friday flags) and
12 months of history pre-aggregated for the Jerusalem stations.

If you use this data in research or downstream work, please cite the
**Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection** as the original source.

## Coverage

- **Window:** 2025-04-28 → 2026-04-28 (12 months, full year)
- **Resolution:** 5 minutes (native sensor cadence)
- **Stations:** 12 active continuous monitoring stations within the
  Jerusalem region (`regionId == 8` in the source system).
- **Total valid readings:** ~7.1 million (only readings flagged `valid`
  by the source system are included; sensor-error / calibration rows are
  dropped).

### Stations

| station_id | Name (English) | Name (Hebrew) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5   | Bar Ilan St | רחוב בר אילן | Major arterial through ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood |
| 13  | Baka | בקעה | Residential mixed |
| 36  | Safra Square | כיכר ספרא | City centre / municipal complex |
| 193 | Romema | רוממה | Ultra-Orthodox |
| 310 | Central Bus Station Platform 10 | רציף 10 תחנה מרכזית | Heavy bus traffic |
| 328 | Atarot industrial zone | אזור תעשייה עטרות | Industrial / north |
| 458 | Devorah HaNevia St | רחוב דבורה הנביאה | Residential |
| 547 | Highway 16 / Beit interchange | כביש 16-מחלף בייט | Highway interchange |
| 568 | Rockefeller Museum | מוזיאון רוקפלר | East Jerusalem corridor |
| 607 | Beit Safafa | בית צפאפא | South-east neighbourhood |
| 623 | Atarot Eden | עטרות עדן | North; partial coverage from 2025-08 |
| 635 | Bezalel St | ירושלים, רחוב בצלאל בזק | City centre; partial coverage from 2026-02 |

Full station metadata is in `stations.csv`.

### Pollutants and parameters

Per-station coverage varies — not every station measures every parameter.
The full set present in the dataset:

| code | pollutant_en | typical units |
|---|---|---|
| `NO` | Nitric oxide | ppb |
| `NOX` | Nitrogen oxides | ppb |
| `NO2` | Nitrogen dioxide | ppb |
| `CO` | Carbon monoxide | ppm |
| `O3` | Ozone | ppb |
| `SO2` | Sulphur dioxide | ppb |
| `PM2.5` | Fine particulates | µg/m³ |
| `PM10` | Coarse particulates | µg/m³ |
| `TSP` | Total suspended particulates | µg/m³ |
| `Benzene` | Benzene | ppb |
| `Toluene` | Toluene | ppb |
| `Temp`, `ITemp`, `RH`, `WS`, `WD` | Meteorological co-variates | — |

## Schema

`data/readings.parquet` (long form, one row per (station, timestamp, pollutant)):

| column | type | description |
|---|---|---|
| `station_id` | int | MoEP station identifier |
| `station_name_he` | string | Station name in Hebrew |
| `station_name_en` | string | Station name in English |
| `station_lat`, `station_lon` | float | Station coordinates (WGS-84) |
| `timestamp` | timestamp\[UTC\] | Reading timestamp in UTC |
| `timestamp_local` | timestamp\[Asia/Jerusalem\] | Same instant in local time (handles DST) |
| `dow` | int8 | Day of week, Mon=0 … Sun=6 |
| `hour` | int8 | Local hour 0–23 |
| `is_friday` | bool | `dow == 4` |
| `is_shabbat` | bool | `dow == 5` (Saturday all-day — naive proxy) |
| `shabbat_or_chag_exact` | bool | True between Hebcal-published candle-lighting (Friday or chag eve) and havdalah (Saturday or chag conclusion), Jerusalem times. The recommended Shabbat flag. |
| `is_yom_tov` | bool | True on local dates that fall on a major Jewish holiday (Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, etc.). |
| `holiday` | string \| null | Name of any Jewish holiday or observance for that local date (e.g. "Yom HaAtzma'ut", "Erev Shavuot"). Joined with `; ` if multiple. |
| `pollutant` | string | Source code (e.g. `NO2`, `PM2.5`) |
| `pollutant_en` | string | English long name |
| `pollutant_he` | string | Hebrew long name (as published by the source) |
| `pollutant_id` | int | MoEP pollutant identifier |
| `value` | float64 | Reading value |
| `units` | string | Reading units (per the source) |

## Quick start

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("danielrosehill/Jerusalem-Air-Quality-Shabbat", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Mean NO2 by day of week, for Bar Ilan St
import pandas as pd
no2 = df[(df.station_id == 5) & (df.pollutant == "NO2")]
print(no2.groupby("dow")["value"].mean())
```

Or directly with pandas / pyarrow:

```python
import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_parquet("hf://datasets/danielrosehill/Jerusalem-Air-Quality-Shabbat/data/readings.parquet")
```

## Headline finding (preliminary)

Using the daytime window 07:00–22:00 local time, **gaseous traffic
pollutants drop sharply on Shabbat across all 12 stations**, with Friday
sitting roughly half-way:

| Pollutant | Friday % drop vs Sun-Thu | Shabbat % drop vs Sun-Thu |
|---|---|---|
| NO    | ~40 % | ~55 % (range 19–76 %) |
| NOx   | ~34 % | ~52 % |
| NO₂   | ~30 % | ~47 % |
| Toluene | ~44 % | ~38 % |
| Benzene | ~25 % | ~21 % |
| CO    | ~7 %  | ~8 %  |

The biggest Shabbat drops are in observant West-Jerusalem
neighbourhoods (Bezalel ~73 %, Bar Ilan ~55 %, Romema ~52 %) and the
smallest along corridors that carry significant non-observant traffic
(Rockefeller Museum ~13 %, Safra Square ~33 %).

**Particulates (PM2.5, PM10) do _not_ drop on Shabbat — they often rise.**
This is a real signal in the data but is confounded by Saharan dust
intrusions and weekend grilling, and needs its own controlled analysis.

Per-station summary tables are in `analysis/`. Full write-up of the
methodology, caveats, and limitations is in `analysis/FINDINGS.md`.

## Caveats and known limitations

- **Two Shabbat flags are provided.** `is_shabbat` is the naïve calendar
  Saturday (Sun=6, Sat=5) and is included for backwards compatibility.
  `shabbat_or_chag_exact` is the **recommended** flag — it uses Hebcal's
  Jerusalem-specific candle-lighting (Friday eve, 40 minutes before
  sunset) and havdalah (≈42 minutes after sunset, three medium stars)
  times, and also covers Yom Tov days. There is a single set of
  Hebcal times applied to all stations; intra-Jerusalem variation is
  under one minute and not material for hourly analysis.
- **Jewish holidays are flagged but not removed.** Use `is_yom_tov` to
  exclude the seven major Israeli yamim tovim from your weekday
  baseline; use `holiday` to filter by name. **Yom Kippur in particular
  is the cleanest air day of the year** (Wed 2025-10-01 was YK 2025);
  leaving it in inflates the apparent cleanness of the weekday baseline.
- **Sensor validity flag is trusted as-is.** Only `valid: true` readings
  are included; the source system's QC decisions have not been
  re-verified.
- **Two stations have partial coverage**: 623 (Atarot Eden) starts
  2025-08-06; 635 (Bezalel St) starts 2026-02-05. Their statistics use
  fewer Saturdays.
- **Station 509** (Malchei Israel) is listed as active in the source
  metadata but returned no historical data over this window and is
  omitted from `data/readings.parquet`.
- **Region filter:** stations were selected by `regionId == 8` in the
  source system. Two stations on the periphery of the region (Highway 16
  and Atarot) sit outside the historical city core but are functionally
  part of the Jerusalem network.

## License

The underlying data is published by the Israeli Ministry of Environmental
Protection as a public-information service. This dataset is shared under
**CC-BY-4.0** with attribution to the Ministry as the original data
source.

## Versioning

- **v1**   (2026-04-28): initial release. 12 months × 5-min × 12 stations,
  long-form parquet.
- **v1.1** (2026-04-28): adds Hebcal-derived columns
  `shabbat_or_chag_exact`, `is_yom_tov`, and `holiday` for
  Jerusalem-precise temporal filtering. Underlying readings unchanged.

## External data sources

- **Air-quality readings:** Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection
  (<https://air.sviva.gov.il/>).
- **Shabbat candle / havdalah times and Jewish-calendar metadata:**
  [Hebcal](https://www.hebcal.com/), public REST API,
  Jerusalem (geonameid 281184).