I note that Arriva is a multinational public transport company owned by Deutsche Bahn and headquartered in Sunderland, United Kingdom. So much for large global companies – but who was responsible for seeing through this huge systemic change at the Malta end?

We have all heard dreadful accounts of the first few days – perhaps they will be resolved in time, but may one Maltese citizen who has lived abroad for some time make some comments about the street signs on the bus stops – in particular the ones I saw last week on Tower Road, Sliema? We have already heard how many of the named bus stop signs have been put in the wrong place, but worse still is that Arriva is patronising and insulting by reducing the old established and cherished names of places – so we get “għadir” and “dud” and, no doubt, other mangling of Maltese place names.

This cannot be explained in terms of space since there is sufficient space for the full name of a place to be given. Moreover, I have noted that this does not happen anywhere in England where full locality names are clear on all the bus stops, be they a place near a hospital or a church or some other recognisable identifier. Londoners would not accept “bridge” for Knightsbridge or “dilly” for Piccadilly. As for tourists and students, they are quite capable of learning a full name as a truncated version.

Arriva may not care about our town and village names but it should be the responsibility of the transport authority to ensure that correct names are given.