New bus ticketing system due to be introduced by July 14

The bus service seems to be heading to a screeching halt after the Public Transport Association expressed complete disappointment yesterday that their proposals on how to iron out the current difficulties were thrown out by the Public Transport Authority.

The association's president, Victor Spiteri said their proposals included the granting to another 30 bus owners the chance to buy a new bus and measures ensuring security against fraud of the bus ticketing system.

"The association has given the transport authority three weeks to meet us to discuss the pending issues. All we have had so far was that a couple of days ago we got a letter from the authority that the ticketing system will be in place by July 14 and then the problems we highlighted would be discussed later," Mr Spiteri said.

There are 430 bus owners who between them own 508 buses. Of the owners, 147 had applied to each get a government subsidy of Lm32,000 to buy a bus according to specifications issued by the authority.

For the 147 buses alone, the government would have to fork out Lm4.7 million in subsidies at a time when the number of passengers is dwindling.

After the association yesterday threatened to announce stoppages in the bus service from next week, the association met Louis Cilia, permanent secretary at the ministry of transport through the intervention of Frank Pullicino, director of labour to try to work out some form of interim agreement.

The association has made it clear it would take part in further discussions only if the transport minster was present (currently Minister Censu Galea is abroad) and if two of their proposals are met, including that the 30 owners would be granted the subsidy to buy the buses.

Efforts to contact Charles Demicoli, chairman of the Public Transport Authority were unsuccessful.