Many ideas are being mooted to solve traffic congestion, from bus lanes, car-pooling, congestion charges, etc, let alone fanciful and expensive tramways, railways and tunnels. These are all solutions aimed at tackling the effects. But surely, measures should first be taken to tackle the cause.
Fuller use of public transport is not being made, mainly because it is perceived to be a bit unreliable and journey times too long. Julio Toroni (October 17) scotched some myths and highlighted the problems of running a reliable service when there are too many cars on the roads.
He is quite correct to say the service has improved immeasurably since Arriva’s chaotic start, despite the numbers of cars having increased also since then. Obviously there are too many vehicles, but attempting to limit their number would be very risky politically, and certainly not just before a general election. Tackle some simpler less contentious areas first.
Bus delays are caused by the haphazard way in which vehicle drivers park, ignoring no parking signs, double yellow lines, zebra crossings, double or even triple parking, failure to use indicators, collisions through bad driving, executing U-turns and so on.
To put an end to these abuses, it is imperative that either wardens, or a dedicated force of transport police, patrol the roads through which buses pass, continuously. To get drivers educated and more disciplined, warnings should be issued in the first instance, and heavier fines introduced to deter the persistent culprits. Parking is permitted on both sides of some arterial roads, like in Ħamrun, and this restricts the width of the highway and often causes additional delays.
The objectives of the present system seem to be to try and embrace as may streets as possible before reaching the final, often distant, destination
With the roads clear, Transport Malta should address the question of journey times. The objectives of the present system seem to be to try and embrace as may streets as possible through intervening villages before reaching their final, often distant, destination. This is to improve on their catchment area, which might suit the comparatively small proportion of passengers making use of the out-of-the-way bus stops but at the expense of the majority having their journey time increased.
The solution is to divide the network into two areas, urban and rural. Buses heading for a rural destination would only collect passengers from a few carefully selected stops as they pass through the urban area. Buses serving the urban area would be very frequent, taking in as much of our expanded villages as possible, and with a final stop at the edge of that area where the rural service would collect those wishing to proceed further.
For instance, a rural service from Valletta to Rabat would collect at St Anne’s Street, Floriana, Porte des Bombes, and finally Fleur-de-Lys. Here, the urban service would have discharged those from the urban area wishing to go beyond Fleur-de-Lys. It then serves the rest of the stops onwards.
At present that route very often fills up with passengers alighting before Fleur-de-Lys and someone hoping to get to Dingli from the middle of Ħamrun can find a full bus and having to wait for the next one, maybe 20 minutes to an hour later.
In addition to the rural and urban networks, there should be express buses for the long distance journeys such as Ċirkewwa, Birżebbuġa, and Buġibba which would make use of the much quicker by-pass roads. Again, the urban network would take passengers to selected stops on the edge of each village they pass through, for example, Mellieħa, St Paul’s Bay, Mosta and Porte des Bombes, in the case of the Ċirkewwa route.
It has to be said that the buses, at least the new ones, the fare structure and the Tallinjia card are all excellent and not an excuse for not making full use of public transport. And once the roads are cleared, as above, and the journey times reduced, people will have no excuse not to use the buses.
Anthony de Trafford is retired and a former company director.