A chapter in the history of the Malta bus service closes tonight when the orange/yellow buses roll into history, to be replaced by the Arriva buses tomorrow.

The change will be the most radical in a bus service which goes back a century and has seen various failed attempts at reform.

Such are the difficulties of the local bus service that this is just about the only essential service which has never been government-owned - although it is government-controlled. 

FIRST BUSES WERE DOUBLE-DECKERS

The first buses for Malta - four double deckers and one single decker -  were ordered in 1905 from the UK and served irregularly between Valletta and St Julian's.

The number of buses grew quickly and so did competition.

The British Motor Company operated most services to Sliema, along with some individuals while a Cottonera Motor Car Company started a service to the dockyard towns. Other individuals tried their hand on other routes.

Soon there were 50 buses in Malta and a new industry was born - the building of buses in Malta on truck chassis.

By this time too, complaints- familiar to this day -  started creeping into the press about overcharging, irregular trips, overloading, rude bus drivers and conductors, non-issuing of tickets, the poor state of the vehicles...

The drivers also started the practice of decorating the buses, giving them a character which was all Malta's own. The buses were named  after saints or personalities and decorated with holy pictures and (later) photos of screen idols - from Marilyne Monroe to Rambo.

The number of buses topped 100 by 1925 and it was over 500 in 1930 - more or less as many as there are today (although the buses were smaller then).

VALLETTA BUS TERMINUS ESTABLISHED

The Valletta bus terminus was formally established in the early 1920s, with the bulk of services going to Sliema and St Julians and to a lesser extent, Cottonera. This was the time when Malta was also served by the railway and the tram going through Hamrun to Rabat in the case of the former, and also extending to Zebbug in the case of the latter. However buses started competing on those routes by 1927, spelling their death knell.

The BMC - which had bigger buses than the individual owners - continued to operate the lion's share of the service and there were many complaints in political circles that it was seeking a monopoly.

Several efforts at reorganisation were made over the years with one of the major ones being decided  by a special committee in 1930. As a result of the committee's deliberations, a new Traffic Control Board assigned monopolies to the various routes and the Valletta bus terminus was split between City Gate and Castille. The Castille bus terminus was only removed in the early 1970s.

Interchanges on some routes were also proposed at that time with bus termini at Birkirkara, Paola and Msida.

By this time bus services covered all of Malta, although there were only 11 routes. Those to Sliema and Birkirkara were by far the most popular and frequent. It was also recommended that it would be a government organisation that would issue tickets. This was also the first time that  it was decided that colours would be assigned for the buses on each route.

Some of the recommendations took many years to be implemented, however.

The BMC sold its buses to Joe Gasan in protest at not having granted a monopoly over the Sliema route. Gasan operated much of the service until 1955, when he too sold the buses.

ROAD WORTHINESS TESTS

Regulation continued to be improved - amid disputes and the occasional strike. They included a requirement, introduced in 1931, for an annual road worthiness inspection of the buses. By the mid 1930s, the regulations provided for drivers' cabins  to separate the drivers from passengers. The buses had to have an emergency door, central aisle and safe glass panes. There were also new rules on the size of the chassis and its weight.

These regulations brought in a new generation of buses - some of which are still on the road today!

The bus service, however, remained fragmented and irregular on many routes. Newspapers claimed there was a black market in bus licences.

NEW ROUTE COLOURS ASSIGNED

The first, failed, attempts at amalgamating the various operators of the bus service were made after the war, but the big change came in the mid 1950s when the Traffic Control Board re-assigned the buses into 21 routes along with the route colours which were to continue until the 1980s. 

Among the most popular were the  all red buses on the Birkirkara route, light green for Cottonera, green with darker green band for Sliema, brown for Mosta, white with a blue stripe for Mellieha, dark , yellow with orange band for Qormi/Siggiewi (similar to the current buses), dark red with green band for Zejtun and light grey with red band for Gozo. The Gozo colour survives till today.

AMALGAMATION TAKES PLACE AT LAST

The idea of amalgamation resurfaced in the early 1970s and it was eventually agreed to assign the routes to three companies. The total merger into one company run by the bus owners took place in 1977 when all the buses were painted light green and got route numbers. The Castille bus terminus closed down and all the bases were based at the City Gate bus terminus.

EXIT THE CONDUCTORS

In 1979 the bus service bid farewell to the conductors as a money-saving measure, and passengers started buying their tickets directly from drivers, a move which considerable slowed down journey time but saved money.

The bus service, however, was continuing to lose its battle with the motorcar.  In the 1980s the first second hand 'London' buses were imported in an attempt to improve comfort. But the absence of open windows actually made them more uncomfortable and totally unsuited for Malta's weather. Converted air conditioned coaches were then introduced, but the air conditioning, inevitably, was switched off.

Some success was achieved in the introduction of  newer buses - including some low-floor vehicles. But following EU membership and the requirements of a competitive tender for the bus service the government, following a call for tenders awarded the bus service contract to Arriva.

It then bought the old diesel-belching buses and compensated the drivers.

A home-grown bus service shunned by most Maltese but which had found itself featured on all sort of tourist souvenirs - from towels to mugs and models - was thus consigned to history with a promise that a new system based on foreign practices would yield better results.

Time will be the judge of that.