New bus service by July
‘Changes target people who do not use buses’
Negotiations with European bus and train operator Arriva over reform of the public transport service have been concluded and a contract is expected to be signed in the coming days.
Writing in a Talking Point published today in The Times, Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt announces that the new service will officially start operating on July 3.
Even though the contract provides for the service to commence within six months from now, the start date was postponed so it would not interfere with school transport, part of which is currently being provided by the public transport operators.
The minister said the targets he had set out at the beginning of talks had been met.
The final phase of the project will start tomorrow, including the re-training of drivers, recruitment of new ones as well as infrastructural changes such as the building of new bus stops, interchanges and termini. Most of these, including the new Valletta and Victoria termini, already have planning permission.
Dr Gatt said the change would be radical, likening the first day of the service to “taking all Maltese commuters abroad to a city they have never been, trying to learn their way around a transport system they have never used”.
According to Dr Gatt, the reform is not the “motorised equivalent of a newly embellished village square,” and the substantial changes are targeted at people who currently choose not to use public transport.
He pointed out that a recent household survey had found that two of every five car users would switch to using the bus if they could and he hoped the service would cater for these people’s needs.
Even though he is optimistic on how quickly the country would forget how “things were in the ‘old days’”, the minister is realistic about the “inevitable” initial hiccups, on which he pledged to work hard and sort out in the shortest time possible.