Malta Public Transport today apologised to passengers who were left stranded after a driver changed the number of the route on the front of the bus midway through the journey.
The Malta Independent yesterday reported that on Friday a bus driver changed the number of the route from 45 to 43, telling passengers to disembark midway through their journey.
In a reply today, MPT said that: “With reference to your article published yesterday 'Bus driver changes route number midway through journey, most passengers left stranded', Malta Public Transport would like to apologise with the passengers that were on board the bus. The company can confirm your report and understands the inconvenience caused and would like to reassure the public that it is putting measures in place to avoid a reoccurrence.
“This includes,” the company said, “a major investment that was done this year to replace the fleet tracking and management system on all buses, including the older buses, which therefore will enable the company to be in control of all the fleet at all times. This system, which is in the final stages of implementation, was launched as a pilot successfully in Gozo and is being reviewed before being launched fully in Malta.
“This system provides real time information to the company and to the driver of the status of the service including each bus on each route, which enables the company to be able to pre-empt and respond to circumstances that arise from time to time. This is one of the most fundamental changes that is being done within the operation, which will have a direct impact on the quality of the bus service.”