Much has been said about the service being provided by the new public bus service operator, Arriva. Although a lot of negative comments have been made I wish to give my first experience of Arriva.

On the evening of Sunday, July 10, my son had agreed to go to his friend’s house in Mġarr. As we live in Mosta, this is normally a short hop by bus.

However after waiting on the Rotunda bus stop for more than an hour, my son called us to see if we could give him a lift as the bus had not shown up. We went on the Arriva website and called their customer service number. An extremely polite man by the name of Alex listened, admitted that there were a few problems because of the lack of drivers, noted our name and number and promised that he’d pass the message onto Control.

Some 10 minutes later, our son called again saying that the bus still had not made an appearance. We called Arriva once again and this time a young lady replied who confirmed that Alex had reported our complaint to Control and assured us that something was going to be done about it. By this time, we had more or less given up and were preparing to go pick up our son and take him to Mġarr. At that moment however, the phone rang and our son happily informed us that the bus had arrived and that he was on his way to his friend’s house.

We were relieved at this but the full extent of what had just happened hit us a few minutes later when a Rosanne Buttigieg called us, stating that she was the Team Leader at Arriva who had received the report from Alex. She confirmed that there were a number of problems because of the lack of drivers and apologised profusely for this but she also informed us that a bus (Route 132 I believe) was dispatched immediately to relieve the pressure on commuters leaving Mosta in the direction of Mġarr and other localities.

We confirmed that the bus had in fact arrived and that our son was already on it, well on his way to Mġarr. She shrugged off our thanks saying that this was the result of a team effort.

The moral of all the above is that yes, admittedly Arriva has not yet met our expectations in terms of a fast and reliable service.

However, in spite of all the difficulties it is clear that the customer care training that Arriva has provided its staff in Malta is already paying off. With all the difficulties that one can expect when embarking on a project as complex as providing a public bus service, together with the added hurdles provided by the no-show drivers, Arriva and its customer care staff have definitely left a most positive impression on my family and me.

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