On Wednesday, January 6, we were on the bus stop ‘Noqra’, at St Thomas Bay, Marsascala, when at 6.45am the 204 bus to Mater Dei surprisingly arrived. I boarded it and asked the well-educated lady driver why it was 20 minutes late.

To my surprise she answered: “You are wrong, I am 40 minutes early because I had to do atrip with workers and the despatcher instructed me to continue on to Marsascala.”

I remarked that the commuters who would be waiting for Bus 204 at the correct time (7.20am) on various bus stops would now be waiting for nothing.

My surprises continued later. At around 12.30pm on the same day I boarded bus 204 from Paola to Marsascala. At 12.55pm we arrived at Noqra bus stop (20 minutes ahead of schedule).

I asked the driver whether there was a time change on this route since he was arriving very early. He immediately answered that we commuters should now forget all about the scheduled times showing at bus stops because the new instructions from Transport Malta were to honour only two departure times: from the terminus of Valletta and from Marsascala.

This now means that we cannot plan our journeys anymore to various appointments, work or schools. How about that, Transport Malta?

Minister Joe Mizzi needs to kindly exit from his hibernation and do something about this irritating situation.

We commuters have been suffering too long with such an irregular bus (dis)service.