Arriva today launched a journey planner, which will be available from its website.

Managing director Keith Bastow told a news conference this afternoon that though the planner, one would be able to input the destination he was leaving from and where he wanted to arrive together with a rough idea of the date and time and get a listing of the different route possibilities, including journey time.

This, he said, was part of the various information tools the company was launching and which included the call centre, downloadable timetables and leaflets.

Leaflets had already been sent out to households and specific ones for the elderly were to be mailed in the next 10 days. The call centre received 500 – 1,000 calls daily, with the number spiking since the information leaflets were sent out.

Mr Bastow said that Transport Malta had confirmed to Arriva this morning, that it would be operating through Bisazza Street, in Sliema, which has been pedestrianised.

Mr Bastow said that eight different routes will pass through Bisazza Street.

The company, he said, had finalised an intelligent information system which programmed buses to bus stops feeding them information of where they were and how long they would be to arrive at that particular spot.

The system was very intricate and changing the route and not passing through Bisassa Street would throw this passenger information out of the window.

Addressing a news conference earlier today, Manuel Delia, the head of secretariat of the Transport Ministry, said Transport Malta had calculated that a bus would pass through Bisazza Street every three minutes.

Passing through the tunnel instead would lengthen the journey by about two minutes.

This would entail an additional three buses and the improvement of the junction near Piazzetta, he said.