After a mere two-and-a-half years, the Arriva-driven public transport system this week succumbed to its injuries and died what can be considered a natural, and perhaps inevitable, death.

After so many trials and tribulations starting from day one when a sizable chuck of the bus drivers hired by Arriva failed to turn up for work, to a no confidence motion in the minister responsible, to the multiple debacles concerning the routes plied, to the cumbersome bendy buses, which eventually began to mysteriously catch fire – the handover of public transport was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.

And as the most vocal of the complainants against the way the former government had handled the public transport reform when in Opposition, the current government will certainly now undergo a very serious litmus test now that it is itself running the system, at least until a replacement operator can be found. 

Matters are starting off on a good footing. The service has so far run smoothly and without interruption. On Friday, the transport minister announced that the discriminatory fares that see non-Maltese residents being charged higher fares than Maltese residents would be removed. This is an issue that has been rankling since Arriva took control of the public transport system, and it is also one that has landed Malta in hot water with Brussels – at an additional cost of €3 million for the government. But, then again, Malta was also facing the very real prospect of considerable fines from the EU over the issue.

Despite the fact that so many of us here in Malta are heavily reliant on our automobiles, the fact remains that a public transport system is the backbone of the country. It is responsible for getting much of the country from A to B – to work, to the hospital or anywhere else. It is utterly indispensable, as is its correct running. 

With the introduction of the Arriva service, the country’s public transport standards were notched up considerably. The rattling bones that backseat passengers had endured for so many years, the sheer inconvenience of a bus service that stopped routes to most localities in the evening, the lack of night buses, the perpetual tardiness, the failure of drivers to stop at all fare stages, the sweltering summer heat within with no air-conditioning and the more than occasional rudeness on the part of certain drivers – these issues have all been rectified to a large extent over the last two-and-a half years.

Having said that, there was and still is much more to be done to have the public transport system that a Western, 21st century country deserves.

It was also an environmental necessity that the old and rapidly ageing yellow buses were taken off the roads.

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 time and time again, 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 buses.

As such, the public transport transformation aimed 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. Here it failed miserably, although it had succeeded in other respects.

The new mass transit system had gone a long, long way towards addressing emissions in those areas and indeed across the whole of the country, with its Euro V engines undoubtedly contributing to significant reductions in emissions of particulate matter and other pollutants.

While the Nationalist Party certainly has no bragging rights over the incredibly fumbled revamp of the service, it should also be observed that the Labour Party now in government will have to prove itself, after all the furore of the last two-and-a-half years.

But after the government purchased Arriva Malta’s shareholding, for a symbolic one euro and effectively nationalised the system, at least for the time being, the Opposition is correct when it called on the government to publish the full details of its agreement with Arriva Malta. These are, after all, not only public funds that are to be spent, but it is also an issue that affects literally thousands and thousands of people on a daily basis.

We have every confidence that the government is doing and will continue to do its utmost to prove itself on this issue. After all, with the ball now well and truly in the government’s court, it will either have to sink or swim in the eyes of the public. As experience has showed, the public transport system is a heated and sensitive issue, and not just politically – it is a real bread and butter issue for so many voters.