Commuters who have not yet received their bus cards should have them in their post-boxes today, provided they registered for the pre-paid card before last week.

The new public transport company doubled its workforce over the weekend to ensure that some 105,000 people who applied for the Tallinja card before June 19 receive it by today, a spokesman for the company told Times of Malta yesterday.

People who applied for the card since June 20 will receive it in the coming days but can claim a refund on the ticket price difference, he added. These will be added to the person’s card balance.

The card and the new fare structure will come into force tomorrow. Through the card system, commuters can benefit from cheaper journey rates.

While at present commuters can buy a ticket for a whole day for €1.50, with the possibility of hopping onto different routes all day, this will no longer be possible when the new fares come into force, when tickets will cost €0.75 for two hours.

If people decided to apply at the last minute, it stands to reason that the applications cannot be processed, printed and mailed within a day or two

As from tomorrow, each journey will cost €2 for those who do not have a Tallinja card.

Spanish company Autobuses de Leon, the new operator of the public transport service, launched the pre-paid card system campaign in April and has since received in excess of 128,000 applications for the bus cards.

Contacted yesterday, a company spokesman said there was “an army of people”, “almost double the usual number”, printing cards and sealing envelopes so they can be distributed today by Maltapost.

He refuted claims that this was “a glitch”, explaining that everything had been in hand until some 25,000 applications were received in the last 10 days. The rush was experienced when the company announced the distribution of cards.

“There was no glitch or difficultly at all. If people decided to apply at the last minute, it stands to reason that the applications cannot be processed, printed and mailed within a day or two,” the spokesman said, adding that efforts were being made to have as many cards as possible out there for commuters to use.

Card holders will need to top up their cards on www.tallinja.com or official outlets before using them.