They seem to have given up on providing us with Arriva stats just after the month ends. That’s more government than Arriva, but someone somewhere seems to have decided that the stats must not be revealed.

To us and in the Maltese context, that can only mean one thing – that Arriva is a roaring success and this fact must be kept hidden from all eyes. Unless, that is, one experiences the packed buses and realises the truth by himself.

It’s been eight months since Arriva came to Malta and the service has improved and increased by leaps and bounds. But there are still issues that must be tackled.

The first regards the increasingly frustrating habit of buses with the wrong sign on. We are also seeing a resurgence of the card numbers being wrongly placed, although we are not yet at the old yellow buses knack of turning a 5 upside down to stand for 2.

Normally, a misplaced sign would not matter much, but there are places such as at Mater Dei when you get buses going in opposite directions. If the bus driver has forgotten to switch the destination before he left on his journey, a passenger may get on the bus only to find out he is going back instead of forward.

Cannot the many officious men that one finds at the Valletta terminus, and the other equally officious-looking people at the outlying termini, such as Ċirkewwa, check the destination, before allowing the bus to proceed?

We will now, as the Italians say, break a lance, that is make a comment on a personal basis. Time and again, the 41 buses departing from Ċirkewwa reach Mellieħa and St Paul’s Bay already full and with people standing in the aisle. Many times people in St Paul’s Bay are left waiting and vent their anger. The service must be beefed up, either capacity-wise or time-wise. It may be even better to use bendy-buses on this route, although the corner near the Labour Party club in Mellieħa is difficult to navigate.

Not all the bus shelters have been renovated and all upgrading seems to have stopped. Some bus shelters are a disaster – with no light, no benches and sometimes with no shelter too. This may be a Transport Malta problem – as is the state of incompletion at the Valletta terminus. On some other bus stops, the electronic signal board was set up some weeks ago but is still not running.

Next complaint: It is about time to do something and correct the obviously mistaken bus stop names. Some, such as Ewkaristija at Mosta (when it could as easily be Kungress) or saints’ names without the appellation are deeply offensive to the Maltese and should be changed without more ado.

Others are clearly in the wrong place – Chalet in Sliema is far from the real Chalet area, Dud should be Għar id-Dud and moved too, etc. There are probably mistakes in most localities.

There are also grammatical mistakes: The plural for bandiera is bnadar, not bandieri as a St Paul’s Bay bus stop has it.

A related mistake that must be corrected is the wrong way in which some bus stop names are read out: Riħana off Mosta is derived from Riħ and the ħ should be felt, as the way it is being announced today makes it seem that the singer Rihanna lives nearby, much to the mirth of tourists on the bus. It is the same for the bus stop called Mary in St Paul’s Bay.

And the pronunciation of the Qadi bus stop near Burmarrad (the name itself is misspelt on the buses’ internal signage) is Qâdi, not Qadi which in Maltese means to serve.

Maybe readers will feel these are all trifles. They are not: A service is as good as its weakest points and a company which has made a good name for itself all over Europe must ensure that even the local service reflects the good name.

We would like however to encourage all who work at Arriva to continue to be smart, presentable, patient and affable, as they are doing. The service is a far better service than the old ramshackle substitute for a service we had till 2 July and even the most diehards are getting to accept this and to love travelling on it. If nothing else, the numbers tell the story.