Despite many efforts made over the years by the local authorities to encourage people to use public transport, these efforts never left the desired results. Many wonder why this happens and sometimes the blame is put on the people, stating that they are lazy and prefer to use their own cars. However, one must take a look at the other side of the situation and perhaps would get a better understanding of why public transport is not popular.

The service provided by the local buses has been, and still is, inefficient. A particular case in point is the route 645 which transports people from Sliema to Ċirkewwa. There were many instances where the service of this route was a complete disaster, including long delays of over 15 minutes and also the service not taking place at all. These instances all took place over the last month. Whenever I contacted the ADT (Malta Transport Authority) they always had an excuse ready, such as "the Sliema route is not in our hands" (as the MTA office in Bieb il-Belt Valletta told me), or "the bus driver had a puncture". The latter might be a genuine case and so the MTA should have a backup bus to offer the service as scheduled.

However, the cherry on the cake was on Monday, July 6, when the bus with registration number DBY 341 which had to leave Sliema at 3.30 p.m., left at 4.15 p.m. So instead of managing to catch the 4.30 p.m. ferry, I took the 6 p.m. ferry because I missed the 5.15 p.m. trip by a couple of minutes.

The irresponsible behaviour and attitude of a bus driver resulted in my arriving home 90 minutes later. Such instances should be investigated by the MTA.

I hope that reporting this case publicly in this manner will catch the attention of the people responsible, because since calling the adt has never proved fruitful, and I hope that this case does not repeat itself.