My dear better half pointed out this article from the BBC telling of the end of the loevely old Malta buses, and the rather nice model of self-employed drivers and cheap fares that goes with it. In goes Arriva.
Oh Dear.
Even without all the misty-eyed nostalgia and the smell, sound and experience of some ancient old diesel, is this really going to produce a better transport system? It’s worked so well here.
Like our old London Routemaster buses, these wonderful and unique old Maltese buses are yet another victim of EU rules.
I loved traveling around Malta and Gozo when we were there on these buses, for most tourists it is part of the holiday. Sadly, using Ariva buses, which won’t even be in the traditional colours of the old buses, will not have the same charm or apeal. I just wish the EU would go and stick its nose where the sun does not shine instead.
I have to say that I’d question the assumption that changing them for Euro III buses will really help the environment that much- I’d love to see some hard scientific facts on whole-life enviromental impact of each type, plus of course, I love the old vehicles.
The European regs and replacement of the actual machinery aside, I’d question the change form the owner/driver association model to some thing that seems to approach our deregulated bus model here.
Whislt not wishing to wave a flag for Arriva*, is the present system in Malta that good? Forty year old buses might be great for visitors, but how would you like to have to use them every day? And what is access for the disabled like? As for deregulation, the Maltese owner/driver model is near to the ideal the Nicholas Ridley aimed for in the 1980s, and failed to achieve.
Tony Martin
* After all it was a badly maintained Arriva bus that caused a fatality in Walsall Bus Station in 2006.
I realise there’s a real danger of rose-tinted spectacles being used here, but I’d be fine using them. There was more space between the seats than a typical modern UK bus, I didn’t see one broken down, they seemed to run roughly to time, and the fares were amazingly cheap. Like I say though, there’s a real risk I was in ‘tourist and old vehicle saddo’ mode, and wrapped up in that. One thing from the BBC article I disagreed with was that locals didn’t use them, and hence Malta was incredibly overrun by cars. I’d have said bus use was 70% local, 30% tourist much of the time, and while Valletta’s roads were very crowded, it was no worse than any other capital city IMO.
Disabled access, admittedly, was pretty woeful. Mind you, a good amount of the Arriva fleet around here was no better, last time I used one.
I’d ideally like to see state-run buses, and was surprised when these weren’t- but I did think if you’re going to have private enterprise involved, the Maltese model worked well. It’s a pity it’s about to end.
Lets just say that this is just exchanging a competitive model with a monopoly run by a bad company, if the 68 service from Wolves to Cannock is anything to go by.
I also thought the nature of the old model was good: it was true private enterprise: small firms (essentially sole traders) grouped under an association, rather than a large corproration.