Every Friday, my daughter has to be at Paola for her piano lesson at 4pm. According to the Arriva schedule, a bus should be in Kalkara at about 3.30pm, in time for my daughter to be in Paola for her lesson. For the second time in a row, Arriva failed to deliver this service.

On November 30, I had a terrible cold and I happened to be alone at home when my daughter phoned from bus stop no. 1,380 to tell me that by 3.45pm the bus had not turned up. As she will soon be sitting for her piano examination and cannot afford to miss lessons, I felt obliged to take my car out of the garage and drive her to Paola, despite my very bad cold.

I complained to Arriva, who promised to look into the matter. A week later, December 7, we had to go through the same inconvenience again.

This time, my daughter phoned me at 3.37pm to tell me that there was no sign of the bus. I called Arriva and was informed that the no. 3 bus was supposed to be on its way to Kalkara. I waited till 3.45pm and, having checked with my daughter that no bus had as yet appeared, I drove to bus stop 1,380 (Iċ-Ċumnija) and picked up my daughter to take her to Paola.

At Vittoriosa bus terminus, I saw a no. 3 bus. I stopped and asked the driver whether the bus had passed through Kalkara, whereupon he said that he was operating route 2 from Vittoriosa and that bus no. 3 went through Kalkara. I told him that he had the number 3 displayed at the back of the coach, to which he answered that it was because there had been a change of shift!

I called Arriva a second time, demanding an explanation but the lady at the other end wanted me to tell her the number of the bus stop known as Iċ-Ċumnija. I then went to the bus stop, took note of its number and returned to call Arriva a third time. When the same lady answered, she failed to trace the track of the 3.30pm bus to Kalkara, as she said that their data track only displayed information of the last hour and, by then, it was 4.35. She added that a bus had passed by the stage at 4.07, apparently forgetting that my daughter had to be in Paola before 4pm.

We have often complained to Transport Malta and even to the Ministry of Transport about Arriva’s shoddy service in our locality but, it seems, in vain.