Dear Austin... I am livid

Dear minister, lowering standards to make up for the route fuck-up is not on and erodes the most positive aspect of the reform.

James Debono 28 October 2011, 12:00am

4 min read

Dear Austin,

Unlike many other commentators who found nothing positive to write about the public transport reform, I immediately welcomed the fact that the new bus fleet was not only air-conditioned but was environmentally friendly due to its Euro 5 engines.

I also congratulated you on your guts in taking on Malta's most entrenched and rabid monopolies which regaled us with a paleolithic and unsafe bus fleet, and to have set environmental conditions on the new operators.

Surely, like other citizens I also expressed my disappointment at the way the new routes were formulated even if I was not personally negatively affected, having seen an improvement in the routes I use on a daily basis.

I also expressed my hunch that this was the result of your attempt to square the circle. Surely the old subsidy system was based on a stupid formula compensating bus drivers for losses, thus promoting sloth and inefficiency. But I still doubted how you could improve standards, keep tariffs very cheap, increase the duration of the service to 11 o'clock in all localities while still reducing subsidies.

Since the days of the Halcrow report, the focus has been on reducing the size of the bus fleet rather than complementing the old routes with new ones. It is true that the former bus fleet was inefficiently used on a day-off, day-on basis. But it was always unclear whether the brief given to consultants was that of improving the service or cutting subsidies. I suspect that the brief given to consultants was a bit of both.

The end result was that we had a high quality public transport service which failed to meet the needs of a number of local communities who ended up wasting more of their time in quasi-panoramic routes, or waiting on stages as the available buses were full up.

What is clear is that the original Arriva fleet of 266 buses was not enough to cater for Malta. Now we will get 36 more, but these will be of an inferior quality. Surely anything is better than the old bus fleet which was beyond any Euro classification, but don't we deserve the best? I am tired of living in a country where the first thing to be sacrificed on the altar of political convenience is environmental standards when we all know that public transport is the key to any improvement in our air quality.

I just hope that the government and Arriva will respect the May 2012 deadline to ensure once again that all the bus fleet will be Euro 5 compliant. Let's hope that this will not be another saga like that of the Marsa power station whose closure remains elusive despite promises made since 1987.

It would have been better for the government to shoulder the extra expense in getting decent Euro 5 buses now. The waiving of standards so soon in the day makes me uneasy as it brings bad memories of half baked reforms in the transport sector, which saw the arrival to Malta of a new set of buses discarded from the rest of Europe.

As long as I am forced to ride on one of the 36 new old buses, I will feel cheated. I was offended whenever I heard people saying that the old system was better. Such reasoning reflects that of a society which is all too willing to settle for mediocrity. I always suspected that many Maltese have a masochistic trait and felt at home in the old trash we had on our roads.

Instead of asking for the very best many gave the impression that they would settle for mediocrity. I disagree. We live in an advanced European nation and we should demand the very best.

Austin I think you owe us this much. I do not give a fig about the the antics of the drama queens in your party. In this case political responsibility means ensuring that people are given what they were promised even at the cost of losing face.

Your resignation would probably make things worse, not better for us commuters, as it would mean a ministerial changeover right in the middle of a prolonged reform. Unfortunately your latest decision to sacrifice quality to make up for the route fuck-up makes your position on the eve of the vote untenable.

Yours truly,

James Debono

James Debono is MaltaToday's chief reporter on environment, planning and land use issues, ...

More from James Debono

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Dr.Gonzi when i send you email to report mr.austin gatt your ansers i still have them in my email. when the election comes along side of crying and loads of fear look what day did labour in the 70 and 80 so i will be afriad and vote for you, this time you gona be surprise cos that week of the election i foward you the same email u sent me. asta la vista and hope i want see pn wining

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James is right to insist on standards. We should all be. A lot of easy talk from the politicos is accepted in Malta without so much as a whimper. Is somebody on this island calculating the colossal amounts of time people spend practically every day caught in traffic, and the costs for health, the environment and the economy? Just by why of example: if you are spending a very conservative 30 minutes a day in the traffic Monday to Friday x 4 weeks = that means a 10 hour working day lost every month behind the steering wheel. Make that x 50% of the working population, and take a seat before you look at the results. Who's complaining?

Peter Cassar •

my point is that we deserve the best, both in terms of routes,affordability and value for money, timings and environmental impact. As a society we have to accept that money invested in public transport is worthwhile. The government is now discovering that it cannot ensure all four criteria without spending more money. So far Arriva has scored well on affordability (just 6.50 for a week ticket) and environment impact but scored low on routes and timings. What pissed me off is to that to raise points on the two factors where the service was lacking we will decrease points on environmental quality. This will affect a tenth of bus trips. I also felt that we should all be livid now to ensure that the 36 buses will be a temporary measure and not a permanent one. Although I understand the emergency and the complexity of the reform this step rekindled memories of past reforms which saw buses discarded from europe finding their way to malta. It was also my way of saying that environmental impact and quality of service are as important as other factors. And that people can be livid about these matters too.

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Isn't this outburst a bit excessive? If these 36 lower quality buses help reduce the number of cars in the road, then surely their use is justifiable. True, it would be better if they were Euro 5 standard, but I doubt whether they could justify the additional cost. At this point a lot of people are not using the bus simply because they are discouraged by all the negativity in the press. Arriva's failure is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their priority should be getting the buses to work on time and working with the media (in particular the PL's network) to show people that they are providing a good service. We can then only hope that people will start giving up their cars and using the buses. If they manage this, then I'll forgive them for having a few bad buses. Also, not to be a prude but was the profanity really necessary? This is after all a professional paper, right?

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Folks, do you remember the past outcry of 'A second hand country'? Is seems lately that second hand has once again became in fashion. Our streets are flooded with foreign second hand imported private cars and public transport buses. James, as for Dr. Gatt, what's wrong for him to resign in the middle of the Arriva fiasco? It's nothing new to him. He has already been told off by the PM in the middle of the Delimara Power station extension saga and his energy portfolio transferred to Tonio Fenech. Not that the latter 'bully' did any wonders or contributed to any improvements, mind you.

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Here we go again with another broken promise. Why do some make promises which they cannot keep? It is better not to make them at all. Of course the people feel cheated. We were promised Euro 5 buses and we should not accept less. But then this is Malta and it seems some think we do not deserve the best. Half baked as the previous reforms. Don't we feel any shame in this country?

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James That was my point and what I would have liked you to stress and not hide it in shades of grey! The point is that we are going to have a substandard service with the new buses (remember that there are already a number of buses that do not have the higher specifications being run by Arriva) and this should be unacceptable by government and not accepted by the Ministry as if this was the norm. The mess was created by the government and it should work hard to fix the situation without sacrificing the standards that it had established itself. By the way I too use the buses!

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@Juke though this more environment friendly feature in the new buses is commendable, and no one expected less then those specifications, one cannot but also highlight the fact that such a reform was not only about having better buses, but also about having at least buses that kept to a schedule. When we had the old service, if a bus did not turn up on time, we would say that this is arrogance from the bus driver. Now we have the new service and the frequency of this situation, ie buses not arriving on time or at all, has increased considerably. Furthermore, ppl on certain routes are being faced with waiting time which is also due to buses that are full-up. I would presume that your children would also like their father to be at home or to reach his place of work on time, right? So in summary for the new service: better: buses (engines and air-conditioned) worse: scheduling and frequency worse: waiting time worse: time spent on the buses worse: higher ticket prices for a substandard service For me (and many others) this is not acceptable, we were actually guaranteed a service that worked and for the past 4 months we've had a service which overall is worse then the old service.

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This whole saga of ARRIVA made it clear to me that we Maltese dont give a damn for our environment -never did and will never do. If nothing the transport reform gave us a breather from those buses belching poisonous fumes every hour of the day. So what! We keep harping for the bad old days and those filthy bone shakers we called buses. We have properly dressed drivers as civilized Europeans -we deserved all this when someone is giving us a service like when you see properly dressed attendants with hygienic gloves serving us at cheese counters. But do we care? As if! Like kids we keep crying for bad old times. We are so afraid of change , of moving forward in the quality chain. I am so happy at least that the air I breathe is a bit less unhealthy and our buildings will blacken with exhaust a bit less and James was in my view celebrating such an event in which I join him for the benefit if the health of my Children and their children.

Peter Cassar •

Dear san pawli-life is not black or white, it is made of shades of grey...unlike many who comment i actually use the buses and there are also positive aspects of the reform even if there are problems with the routes-problems for which government is responsible. My point is that we cannot solve these problems by giving up on standards. And even if this is a temporary solution, we should be livid now, to make it clear that it is no turning back the clock.

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Dear James Debono what sort of article is this??? I cannot make it at all. On one hand you call the transport reform a fiasco whilst on the other hand you state that the customers having a masochistic trait and felt at home in the old trash we had on our roads. This I find insulting as I definitely have no such traits ...... well I do not know about you, do you have such traits????? What I think most Maltese were stating was that they preferred the old routes to the new ones..... no more no less. Reading through your article seemed like reading through a confusion of thoughts that were not even in a logical manner... You were taking the Minister up but somehow you realized that you wanted to balance this out so you started attacking the public. Why?? I would have expected you to ask the Minister what will the public pay for this second class service, will we still pay for the A/C and for the Euro V engines which are definitely less environmentally damaging than the New buses? Who is responsible for the environmental damage that these buses will have? You could have also asked the Minister if this was made in revenge for the uproar of the public? Or is he planning to leave the Ministry and thus is not interested in the outcome of the transport service??? U mela tohodha kontra il Publiku?????

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Austin Gatt would definitely have been irresponsible if he had stated that he would to resigning before completing the public transport reform. This is obvious to anybody who is endowed with a logical mind except it seems to those clamouring for his resignation. These people seem to be more concerned with his resignation than with the success of the transport reform though they say they are demanding Gatt's resignation to ensure the success of the reform. It goes without saying that the success of the reform is not in the interest of an opposition party, but surely it is in the interest of the party in government> And frankly I fail to understand Franco Debono's or any other PN MP's stand in all this. I hope that Debono and other non-starters - if there are any - will see the lack of logic in their thinking and realise that the transport reform will not benefit in any way were Gatt to resign at this stage when the reform is not completed. Debono said that he would be abstaining on Labour's motion unless Gatt assumes responsibilty: Gatt assumes responsibility by staying on and carrying on with his task, NOT by resigning. Indeed if Gatt resigns he would be acting irresponsibly. Perhaps Debono's original stand has been overtaken by events.

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@James Debono the title of your article should read "Give Austin another chance". So, like the majority of Maltese (as well as foreigners) you realized the flop behind this reform, yet you're settling for a mediocre minister and want him to persist in his post, expecting that he finally gets it right. While everyone welcomed the new buses with Euro 4/5 compliant engines and air-conditioning, no one expected the chaos and delays from this new system, especially after the hype from Austin and TM. When one weighs the pros and cons after almost 4 months, one cannot but state that Austin has made a flop of yet another reform. He had ample time to do the right things, however, either due to arrogance or bad decision making (also by those around him) he has failed you and us miserably. Giving him another chance to do the right thing should not be on, enough is enough!! If you (or anyone else for that matter) do not perform your work well, if you're sloppy or arrogant, your boss will not think twice to kick you out. As has happened to TMO's journalist Matthew Bonanno, even though the poor fellow actually did very little to deserve such treatment. Alas he was not called Austin...right James?

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Amen