Some bus drivers are taking unauthorised breaks from work half-way through their schedule, often heading home or idling away time at kiosks while fuming passengers are stranded on bus stops, The Sunday Times has learnt.
Unbeknown to the bus drivers in question, the IT system of their vehicles, which are equipped with GPS (a satellite-based navigation system), tracks their every move and has shown them to be veering off their route.
A “substantial number” of bus drivers are doing this every day, bent on sabotaging the revamped bus service and compounding delays, sources said.
“We have caught certain drivers doing the first two trips of the day and then disappearing for long hours. Their buses were tracked outside their homes or parked alongside kiosks.
“This explains the mystery of why certain routes were running smoothly in the morning and then suffered huge delays in the afternoon,” the sources said, adding that in other instances drivers were deliberately taking short cuts to disrupt the service.
When contacted, Arriva Malta director Piers Marlow confirmed the company had received reports and found evidence of buses going “off route and not operating where they should be”.
“Each report is fully investigated. In addition, we have been monitoring activity using the GPS system over a random sample every day and investigating anomalies where they occur,” he said.
The IT system on the bus records the location of every vehicle at all times and provides precise details of whether the bus is in service, its route and whether it is stationary or moving.
“In many cases these have been errors or events with a reasonable explanation. However, there have been a number that have proven to be deliberate and these have been dealt with or are the subject of a disciplinary inquiry,” Mr Marlow said.
This situation rubs salt in the wounds of those who have had to wait long hours on a bus stop, and comes just one day after former Justice Minister Joe Brincat filed a judicial protest against Transport Malta objecting to the unreasonable routes that have increased travelling times threefold.
Mr Marlow urged any passengers who witnessed such instances to contact Arriva, quoting the bus registration number where possible.
“We repeat, the majority of our people are trying their hardest under difficult circumstances and are operating in accordance with the schedules. But there will always be a minority who may try to abuse the system – there is no place for those people with Arriva Malta,” Mr Marlow said.
Arriva’s control centre is in the process of viewing the data recorded on its system route by route to try and identify any behavioural patterns and to establish where the delays have been happening, according to a company spokesman.
It turns out that bus drivers have been completely oblivious to the fact that their every movement is being tracked, and the company plans to start making them aware of the situation to drive home the message that they can no longer get away with it, he said.
The spokesman was not in a position to say exactly how many bus drivers were playing truant since the company had in the past weeks been more focused on getting things going, and few resources had been put into monitoring bus drivers until now.
“I don’t view this as organised sabotage. I see this as normal human behaviour in a situation where you have a complex system that is initially quite chaotic and if there are opportunities for people who can do less work than they’re supposed to, a few will do so,” the spokesman said, adding this behaviour was not unique to Maltese bus drivers.