It was the Msida hill just past the police station in the middle of the day earlier this week. One of the country’s now decommissioned rusted dinosaurs that up to yesterday comprised the country’s public transport system was struggling up the not-so-steep incline and each time the accelerator was pressed huge clouds of black smoke billowed from the side of the bus. Pedestrians gagged and covered their mouths while the walls of the nearby buildings took on yet another layer of fine black dust.

The scene has, sadly, not been an unfamiliar one. In fact, it is a scene that each and every one of us has either experienced directly or at least witnessed. It is also a scene that, after today, will no longer characterise Maltese roads.

Yes, many of us have had the occasional early pang of nostalgia when contemplating the vanishing from the roads of those vehicles that have served the country for so many decades, in so many colours and along so many different routes.

But those pangs are short lived upon closer inspection of the pollution that has been spread, the rattling of the bones backseat passengers have endured, the sheer inconvenience of a bus service that stops routes to most localities in the evening, the perpetual tardiness, the failure of drivers to stop at all fare stages, the sweltering summer heat within and the more than occasional rudeness on the part of certain drivers.

That all, after today, is all meant to become a thing of the past.

And in so many ways today’s public transport transformation, for it is more of a transformation than a reform as it is being described, is symbolic of so much for the country. It symbolises a country that is shrugging off the one of the last vestiges of its old, antiquated self. It is a country reinventing itself, slowly but surely, and that reinvention must not stop here.

Now back to those clouds of black smoke. After the generation of energy, transportation is the country’s second-largest polluter and in the transportation category, public transport is the largest polluter. As such, public transport vehicle emissions are a leading source of air pollution and, in the same vein, a leading source of the deterioration of the country’s air quality.

Studies have shown, for example, that Sliema and Gzira suffer the highest levels of particulate matter pollution found in vehicular emissions, and it is no coincidence that they are among the most heavily transited parts of the country when it comes to the country’s long antiquated bus fleet.

As such, the public transport transformation aims to tackle the problem at its source – by attempting to create a culture that would see more cars taken off the road in the first place.

Malta is not only the most densely populated country in the EU – it is also the most densely populated in terms of cars, with well over 300,000 for a population of just over 400,000 men, women and children.

But against that backdrop, a mere 12 per cent of the Maltese currently use public transport as against the 50 per cent EU average.

The new mass transit system will go a long, long way towards addressing emissions in those areas and indeed across the whole of the country.

As such, the new public transportation fleet and its Euro V engines will contribute to significant reductions in emissions of particulate matter (94 per cent lower than current levels), nitrogen oxides (70 per cent), carbon monoxide (55 per cent) and hydrocarbons (48 per cent).

The €35 million new transport system, in addition to a range of commuter comforts and information services common in the rest of Europe, is to have 230 brand new Euro V buses and an additional 86 buses with Euro V engines between two and seven years old. The new fleet will also include 13 electric-hybrid vehicles to be used in historically and environmentally sensitive areas.

Despite yesterday’s flare-up at the Arriva offices, when a handful of drivers took considerable exception to their rosters, matters, we are assured, will run smoothly today.

And although there are bound to be teething problems with a project of this size going live all at once, these will eventually be ironed out and the country will hopefully have a modern, European standard transportation system that is, over and above all else, efficient for passengers and a lot more environmentally friendly than its predecessor.

With the launch of the new public transport system, Malta marks another new beginning, let us all contribute to its success by giving it a sporting chance by thinking about leaving our cars at home whenever possible, and to start using this new means of getting from A to B.