It is now less than two months before the end of the current public transport system. On 3 July, the new Arriva system will take over.

However, people are now still using the public transport service and they can all vouch the system is breaking down as the deadline approaches. The authorities, especially Transport Malta and the police, must ensure that the standards and rules are kept.

What we are saying is derived from daily and personal experience as well as circumstantial and hearsay evidence from users and even bus drivers.

• For instance, on Monday an irate bus driver at City Gate told a woman passenger who was protesting that as much as 60 bus drivers did not turn up for work that morning. That accounts for the missed bus trips and the confusion that ensues.

• A bus driver who is constantly on the phone, and as soon as he puts the phone down, smokes a cigarette. And all this not just in view of the passengers but also of the inspector who was chatting away at the back of the bus.

• A bus driver surrounded by teenage friends – a girl sitting on the lap of another friend just behind the bus driver, and issuing the tickets herself, and a boy who preferred to stand on the steps just as the old-time conductors used to do.

• There have been many instances of bus drivers giving out tickets not from the machine but from blocks of tickets they hold in their hands.

And so on and on.

3 July cannot come quick enough. The people have had it up to here with the following or even worse.

• Old shaky buses that grumble and roar, shake and squeak, whose gears seem to be giving up the ghost and which crawl up hills as if out of breath.

• Dirty buses both on the outside and inside, ripped seats, grubby handrails, missing stanchions, very low lighting at night, buckets under the seats, broken windows or windows that cannot be closed, doors that are not closed, or no doors at all, etc.

• Indiscipline all around: At Valletta a man with a hand-written list ticks off the buses, makes changes on the hoof, and gives a distinct impression of lack of coordination and an inability to enforce the rules. This also goes for so many glaring breaches of the uniform code, some buses crawl and arrive late, others fly past and sometimes do not stop for passengers if there is only one passenger waiting, or if it’s evening. The chaos and confusion is at its worst at Valletta, especially when some bus stands were recently changed and even that small bit confused some drivers. Or maybe they used the change to do their thing. Sometimes bus drivers go AWOL and leave the bus shut and people have to wait in the rain or the heat.

• Waiting until all incoming passengers hand out the money and until the driver hands out the change.

We believe we speak for many bus passengers when we all heave a huge sigh of relief once 3 July comes around. Goodbye to all that! And good riddance too!

It is not a moment’s too soon. The long-suffering Maltese people (not to say anything about the tourists) surely deserve better.

We count on Arriva to teach these people how a proper bus service should be, how passengers are to be treated with civilly, how buses must be driven with care for safety procedures and road courtesy, how buses must be in this day and age – clean, hygienic, fully-functional, and suited to Malta’s narrow and winding roads, with an Eco 5 certificate instead of spewing out black fumes.

Unfortunately, except those that have joined Arriva on the quiet, most of the drivers are in denial and still say to all who may want to hear the government should have negotiated with them, not with the foreigner. To which the long-suffering Maltese public will, come 3 July, reply that there was simply no way for the present bus driver / owner / association to get its act together and upgrade the service as a foreign operator, used to the continent’s different environments and standards delivery.

Even today, or rather especially today, there is simply no way a passenger seeking information let alone seeking redress can get somebody to hear him out. At least with the foreigner there will be a point of reference.

Roll on, 3 July.