I feel I must put in writing my thoughts on the running of the buses in Malta.
When I was in Malta this year between September 1 and 15, I was very disappointed. I have used the bus service from Mellieħa for many years. It was impossible to get anywhere without experiencing a lot of difficulty. The cost was €2.60 for a day’s travel. To add insult to injury, I heard that the Maltese pay a lot less than that. I was born in Malta and I am a pensioner.
The journey times were a joke. One day I went to Sliema, which took 30 minutes and then to Valletta to get a bus to the Crafts Village which took me three and a half hours to arrive… let alone get back.
On another occasion, two other pensioners residing in the same hotel travelled from Mellieħa to Sliema but had to stand all the way. In fact, they got off at St Pauls Bay and got a taxi back costing them €18. The couple were 86- and 83-year-olds and no one offered them a seat. This is happening all the time and taxis are overcharging the tourists. I’ve heard this complaint several times from other people.
I read in The Times that Arriva are receiving many complaints and that they are ignoring tourist complaints, obviously because they will be returning home! But, on arriving home, they report to other people wanting to go to Malta.
The bendy buses are an even bigger problem – a joke. During a particular journey there was an accident involving two of them and a normal bus on the road back to Mellieħa via St Paul’s Bay up the hill. It took over an hour to get the traffic moving again; the roads in Malta are too narrow for these buses.
Who was the person who thought of introducing them? Another aspect with these bendy buses is that there are only 43 seats and space for 84 standing passengers. Why get rid of all the other buses when Arriva were 100 buses short?
On another day I tried to go to the ferry port and was told by a passenger he had been there for over 45 minutes and could not get on the bus. We waited together for another hour but all the buses were full.
Please get this sorted as you will lose a lot of tourists.
I hope the Transport Minister, the Malta Tourism Authority and Arriva in particular will get the situation right for Malta’s sake.