Judging by the letters that I have seen in this newspaper, I am not the only person concerned with the inadequacies of the bus service in Malta.

I suspect the root cause of the problem is that the senior staff who organise Malta Public Transport never actually use the system themselves on a regular basis. I am certain that if they did it would improve overnight.

Cyril Nothcote Parkinson put it very aptly: “People are promoted to a level beyond their capability”.

One obvious problem is that, often, the incoming bus servicing a particular route is followed by an outgoing service on that same route.

This works well until the incoming service is late. The outgoing service is then either late or cancelled, depending on the whim of the local inspector. This is an obviously bad method of operation.

By setting up a bus service that cannot be trusted on running to a timetable, Malta’s Public Transport is pushing people into using their own transport or taxis, either of which causes more congestion on what is already an inadequate road system. This, in turn, makes it even more difficult to run a service to a timetable.

What the company needs to do is employ people who are experienced in running a complex system, perhaps from a large European city such as London, Paris or Berlin. There are plenty of them.

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