Although more than eight months have passed since Arriva took over the public transport system, its service still leaves much to be desired, at least in my experience. I often use the 52 bus to Dingli, but it is never on time and quite often there is no service at all. According to Arriva’s timetable, the 52 bus should run every half hour, but trips are often not performed.

And it is not only the 52 service that does not run on time – other buses often ignore their timetable altogether.

Only recently I boarded the 31 bus at 7 a.m.; it was supposed to leave at 7.05 a.m. but the driver felt like having a smoke and a chat with his mates, so we did not leave until 7.12 a.m.

Why does Arriva tolerate this indiscipline and inefficiency when it had more than eight months to sort out the mess’?

I would be grateful to Arriva for its comments.