Deviating the Arriva buses away from Bisazza Street, Sliema, will be a complex operation which will require time and additional buses, Manuel Delia, head of secretariat at the Transport Ministry said this afternoon.
He explained that because of the smaller Arriva bus fleet, the buses would operate on a very tight schedule with only a five-minute buffer between operations on different routes.
Avoiding Bisazza Street and taking the longer route through Tigne tunnel would remove this buffer and thus potentially cause a ripple effect of delays across several other routes, Mr Delia said.
He said that buses would be driving through Bisazza Street 479 times every day.
Altering the route - as the government ultimately wanted - would take time because of the replanning of the route timings, and it would would also require three more buses to join the network, Mr Delia said.
Arriva had calculated it would need an additional two 12-metre buses and an 18-metre articulated bus so as to ensure that the frequency of services was not disrupted because of the longer route.
One would also need to have an additional 10 drivers to operate these additional buses round the clock all week.
Arriva would also have to update its computerised network system on all the buses, something which would take time.
All this explained, Mr Delia said, why changing the route would take time and Arriva would have to be compensated, since the route through Bisazza Street was agreed beforehand between the company and the government. Talks between the government, Transport Malta and Arriva on the issue are continuing.
See also -
Talks under way on compensating Arriva for avoiding Bisazza Street