Forty new buses arrived in Malta on Friday in a bid to increase public transport's passenger carrying capacity.    

Transport Minister Ian Borg told reporters that the €9 million investment by Malta Public Transport, which operates Malta’s public buses, was meant to improve the service and address shortfalls.  

The new buses bring the existing fleet up from 405 buses to 435. 

Apart from features such as Wifi and USB ports, the new buses are all equipped with protective screens separating the driver cabin from passengers.

The screens were included after Malta Public Transport reported an “alarming increase in assault cases on chauffeurs”..

Dr Borg said that 10 of the existing nine-meter buses currently on the road would be replaced with brand new 12-meter buses that were better suited to Malta's needs. 

The total new additions would provide 69,000 more trips annually, Dr Borg said. 

This, he added, would help ease the pressure on the service running through tourist hotspots and other areas where demand was high.   

The routes that will be increasing frequency will be announced in coming days.

Dr Borg however noted that Santa Venera and Fgura both needed to strengthen their passenger carrying capacity, along with popular tourist areas. 

'We had to reform the reform'

Dr Borg said public transport had not been a sector in good health when the Labour government took over back in 2013. 

Labour, he said, had “reformed the reform” that had taken place before 2013, and had today manged to turn it all around.  

In 2018 Malta Public Transport had carried some 53 million passengers, up from 33 million in 2011. 

Around 150,000 passengers used public transport everyday last year, up from some 90,000 eight years ago.   

Dr Borg said the growth had been gradual and constant, increasing year-on-year for the past few years.