Double-decker buses hit a dead end

Garden of Eden Coaches, a leading transport company, has been battling against transport authorities for over 12 years to operate its open-top double-decker buses, director Alfred Spiteri said.

But the Malta Transport Authority (ADT) has concluded that the operation of the company's three double-deckers in the Maltese urban environment could pose a safety risk in that a standing passenger on the upper deck would receive inadequate frontal protection from overhanging wires, trees, building protrusions and other street furniture.

In 1993, Angelo Spiteri had obtained permission from the Public Transport Authority to import three double-deckers from the UK and drive them from the docks to the company's depot in Ghaxaq. But, unfortunately, that is where their journey ended.

Until today, the Spiteris have not realised their objective to operate open-top double-decker tours of Malta and have been fighting the authorities since.

Their story was related in the newly launched quarterly Malta Transport News, a Business Worldwide publication.

The company has received various requests from overseas and local tour operators to organise sightseeing tours of Malta on the open-top buses and is frustrated that it cannot fulfil them, a desperate Mr Spiteri said.

The company's requests were "falling on deaf ears", he said.

Mr Spiteri argued that now that Malta has joined the EU, Maltese operators should have the same rights as EU operators. Instead, the situation was such that an EU operator had been granted permission to temporarily import and operate double-deckers in Malta, he claimed.

Mr Spiteri said the vehicles had passed their VRT test and the company was given a copy of the result but the service station had refused to issue the required certificate.

The company is taking the service station to court for not issuing the required certificate, Mr Spiteri said, questioning the basis on which this decision was made.

Following the intervention of Maltese and European MPs and pressure in the media, Mr Spiteri said he was granted a meeting with the transport authority but to no avail. "They claim that the double-deckers are dangerous, yet they passed the roadworthiness test," he said.

It was a case of two weights and two measures in that both political parties, as well as a premier league football team, had used open-top buses for their celebrations. No accidents occurred and no reports were filed, Mr Spiteri said.

In response to Garden of Eden's claims, the ADT said it recently wrote to Mr (Angelo) Spiteri on the subject of the registration and licensing of the three double-deckers, informing him that the authority could not accede to his request for their use on Maltese roads.

According to the specifications that Mr Spiteri had forwarded to the Public Transport Authority in the early 1990s, the three buses (two Daimler Gardener GLXB buses and one AEC Regent 5 bus) were originally constructed in the 1960s and 1970s as conventional enclosed double-decker buses, with a typical UK body height of 4.38 metres.

The subsequent conversion of these buses into open-top models (through removal of half of its upper front windscreen, its side windows and its roof) has resulted in the maximum vehicle body height of each bus being practically reduced to less than four metres, ADT said.

The conversion of the vehicle body would appear prima facie to meet the EU's maximum dimension requirements, contained in Directive 96/53/EC, which lays down maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and maximum authorised weights in international traffic for certain road vehicles circulating within the Union.

However, this is not the case, as the upper body of a standing passenger on the upper deck would, in fact, exceed the maximum authorised vehicle height of four metres, the authority continued.

ADT technical inspection of the three vehicles in March indicated that the upper front windscreen only provided protection for a height of 1.3 metres above floor level.

Bearing this in mind, the authority had concluded that the operation of the double-deckers could pose a safety risk.

Due to the fact that the issue was raised in the European Parliament, the ADT said it would be communicating its decision to the European Commission to invoke the provisions of Article 36 of the EU treaty, in this particular case, on the grounds of road safety.