For many, the events of the past week regarding public transport may have come as a sudden storm. Or perhaps some people even thought it was a diversionary tactic.

It wasn’t – the timeframes were there. By the time the call for an expression of interest to run the public transport system in Malta closes around the middle of next month, potential investors will have a clear idea of what awaits them.

But let’s go a bit further back. The reform of public transport was not listed among the PN’s electoral commitments in last year’s election. I pored over the manifesto and all I could find is a commitment to “improve the public transport system”, (pg 56), not overhaul it the way it’s being done. The bus owners are right when they say they were promised the present system would be retained for at least 10 years.

However, the real mistake was that the commitment was not made, not that since it was not made, it was not to be attempted during this legislature. For if there is anything that will really change the face of Malta, and in a way that will benefit the people, especially (although not exclusively) the poor, over the coming years, it will not come from whatever will be done to the entrance to Valletta but through a thoroughly renovated and upgraded system of public transport. This is, of course, provided (more about this later) that the country gets it right.

The bus system works. It gets people where they want to go. It is dirt cheap. It is loved and appreciated by the public. In many cases, it is quite near to where you live (unless you live really far out) and where you want to go.

Yes, it could have been renovated, with new buses and all. But any such reform would have inevitably hit the hidden and not so hidden flaws and limitations of the system.

Let’s try and enumerate them.

Firstly, the present system is so wasteful. At least one half of the buses are out of action on any day. Most of the other half then spend hours on end waiting at Valletta – thus adding to the general air of neglect in the area – instead of being utilised.

Secondly, since the system, bar a little recent tinkering, is radial with Valletta as its core, all the buses hog the roads leading to Valletta and back, when far fewer would be used (and more frequently) if the hub system is used. Take, for instance, Mosta. At any time on the road from Valletta to Mosta you will find half empty buses going on to Mgarr, Cirkewwa, Bugibba, Ghajn Tuffieha, etc., all clogging up the road and intruding on the rest of the traffic.

Thirdly, it is completely wasteful of time, which is money. Since the bus owners were loath (and more) to accept a bus ticketing system that would have enabled people to buy blocks of tickets and punch them in themselves, passengers have to queue and the bus driver has to dole out the change and punch in for the ticket. Stops at bus stops take ages.

Fourthly, one has to stand at the roundabout outside the university and watch bus after bus with no passengers or only a few, leisurely passing by at most hours of the day, many times on to the old St Luke’s Hospital, thence into the Hamrun maze of roads and finally to Valletta or their destination. But few know that the government, which ‘ordered’ the addition of new bus routes to Mater Dei, pays out what the bus owners do not make through patronage. In other words, it is the government that is paying for the empty seats.

Fifthly, since the system in use even today insists that all buses are interchangeable, it is not possible, for instance, to use the more spacious buses on the most popular routes and restrict the others to the villages. No, it does not work like that: the bus that plies to St Julian’s today will be going to Mqabba the next day. And vice versa. So you get insufficient buses on the really busy routes and empty buses so huge that they cannot get round the corners of the old winding streets in the villages.

Sixthly, it is certainly wasteful of the passengers’ time. It takes up to and sometimes more than an hour to use two buses for a journey that a car can do in 10 minutes. People just don’t have that time any more, which is why more and more people use cars, giving the impression that the only people using the buses are the really poor, the tourists and those whose car has broken down. Which is why (plus some other reasons) last year not only did the new car importers bring in more cars than they used to, but along with them hordes of second-hand cars were being imported on speculation from the UK. People know that, sooner or later, the cars they bring in will be sold.

So, goodbye to all that. Goodbye to old, rickety jalopies that shake all over; goodbye to high steps that tax all passengers, especially the elderly; goodbye to uncomfortable seats where your knees bump against the back of the seat in front of you; goodbye to hanging on for dear life from dirty straps; goodbye to searching for the bell one rings to get the bus to stop, etc.

If this system is thoroughly changed, the money the country is spending to buy back the buses and the licenses is well worth it. People, including the Chamber of Commerce, have been aghast at the huge amount of money that is being spent. Coming on top of other deficit enhancers such as the dockyard workers early retirement scheme, the huge increase in salaries for doctors, even the scheme to get people to pay their tax dues and save on fines, this raises some ethical questions.

The many people who are aghast at the money being given to bus owners would seem to be arguing, even without their noticing, in favour of some nationalisation of the system. That could have been another way forward, and perhaps future experience will tell us that it would have been a simpler way, but at a time when the government is seeking ways of getting out of the economy, fully conscious that it is not good at running businesses, maybe the present way forward is the best alternative. It is certainly a far better solution than the present one, where owners are truly very conscious of their ownership but in a very backward way, cutting corners, ensuring they get a good night’s sleep, shouting at people or being surly, and squeezing all they can get. For many years, we have been hearing about tourists who are overcharged, but ever since Malta joined the euro, there is a new scam in place, twiddle all those who offer a 50c coin out of the 3c change. It’s nothing, really, and many people just don’t bother about this change, but for others, especially those who have to ride two buses to work and back, it adds up to a rather tidy sum at the end of the week.

But as Minister Gatt’s assistant wrote: “For all it’s worth, it should be said that our basic law and European and Maltese case law obliges any government to pay for what it takes away from people. A government that Mintoff-style takes away from you your house to build a road or your shares in a bank to give it to the ‘people’ is obliged under our laws to pay you for the value of what has taken away from you. Whether you like them or not, bus owners paid for their business and the value of what they owned is confirmed by recent notarial contracts of purchase. We have given them what belongs to them, not to please them or displease them, but because it was the right thing to do. Even with people many may not like, even if we’re firing them from the job they used to do – badly – it is our duty to always do the right thing and accept always that like it or not the law rules and even governments have to obey it.”

The problem now is: will the reformed system bring about what the government has been boasting it will? And even – at the very least – will the new system provide, right from the beginning, the coverage that the present system delivers? Because, let the government get this clear, there can be no teething troubles with the new system. People will not accept a system that leaves them stranded. I am still not convinced that the people piloting this reform understand the intricacies of the system.

The people of Malta certainly deserve a public transport system suited to 2010. Considering everything, it is very surprising that we are still running around with other people’s cast-offs, the Strowgers of transport, the buses that plied the streets of London in post-war days. And it is about time, too, that the issue of mass public transport is seriously taken in hand and studied, even if its implementation requires more and more years of planning.

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