Our guess is that you’ve seen this headline or something similar a million times in Maltese newspapers. Our guess is also that no matter how many times we will write this headline, the problems in our public transport system will remain hard to resolve.

We have moved on from the old public transport system to the Arriva flop and we will now move on to another system as from 2 January. Given that the public transport system has always been a shambles, it is hard to believe that the government’s magic wand will work wonders as from Thursday, and that when the new operator takes over in a few months time things will smoothen out completely.

The problem is that many, if not most, of us have an ingrained distrust in the public transport system. When we go abroad we do not find it difficult to use the public transport system there, simply because it is efficient, reliable and value-for-money. Here, we do not use it simply because we never arrive on time, we never know if the bus will turn up or leave us stranded and we do not know if the bus driver will shout at you just because you happen to mistakenly ring the bell twice.

So we prefer to waste more money by using our cars, drive around in circles in search of a parking place and feel frustrated in traffic jams that seem to pile up at every roundabout or intersection – rather than take the bus.

The problems on our streets are therefore a vicious circle. We have more cars on the road because public transport is inefficient, and the number of cars will continue to rise unless public trust in public transfer grows. But this will take generations to happen, and so we are lumped with having traffic nightmares each and every day, with journeys that are supposed to take 15 minutes taking up an hour, and perhaps double that if it is raining.

We will be spending millions to try to upgrade the traffic network. But we have serious doubts whether, for example, the work being carried out in Marsa and the project that will be carried out at the Kappara roundabout will have a positive effect on the traffic flow. Unless the public transport system is efficient enough to eliminate cars on the road because people start using buses, we will never get anywhere..