Although Arriva says that complaints have dwindled to a trickle, this could well be because several people have now given up repeating themselves.

Admittedly, the service has seen tremendous improvement since its introduction, but there are still areas that need attending to. Here follow three complaints:

1. Time-keeping by drivers is still rather poor. Traffic congestion is the main reason given for failing to adhere to the timetable but in some instances this is due to driver indiscipline.

For example, on routes 51, 52 and 53, which are supposed to travel at 10-minute intervals, are often seen passing one after the other.

Also, buses either leave the Valletta terminus ahead of the published time or call at a bus stop ahead of the published time, leaving passengers stranded.

2. The board in Valletta showing the bay from which a particular route is departing was removed last October and has still not been replaced. If some bays are still not finalised, a temporary board can always be displayed.

3. The route timetable on many bus stops does not show the words ‘You are here’ with the time the bus is due at that particular bus stop. Several route timetables quote bus stops in the vicinity, with names often unknown to commuters, especially tourists. In Gozo these route timetables are as they should be. Why not in Malta?

When I queried this with Arriva customer care I was told route buses timetables fall under the responsibility of the local council, something which our mayor has vehemently denied.

All these complaints have been communicated to Arriva customer care and to Transport Malta on several occasions, but I am not convinced they are being tackled effectively.

Let us hope that one day we will have a service to be proud of and which will make us abandon our cars.