Great expectations, big disappointments?

A year ago, everyone expected the reform of the public transport system to become a showcase for the Gonzi administration.

All the ingredients of success were there - not only was the previous system in shambles, but the government had already won the most difficult aspect of the reform; smashing the bus owners' entrenched monopoly.

Much of the credit for this should go to the previous owners themselves, who dug their own graves during the wildcat strikes of July 2008. Any residual opposition was quelled after the government dished out €55 million to buy bus owners' licences.

Considering the state in which public transport was in under the old regime, it seemed obvious that any reform would have resulted in an improvement of sorts.

This was taken for granted by the public... so much so that few took any note of the radical changes which were already being proposed on paper.

Even local councils, all of which were given a map of the new routes way back in 2009, did not raise any serious objections.

Moreover, the government raised expectations sky high by promising a more punctual and efficient system while still decreasing subsidies. 

Instead of telling the people that reforming a system entrenched for the past 50 years was a difficult process that would require plenty of patience, government officials gave the impression that a new dawn of public transport would be approaching.

Anyone talking to Manuel Delia before the new service started operations was impressed by his optimism that the new route system, devised by top foreign consultants, would revolutionise public transport in a way which would have resulted in more people leaving their cars at home and using public transport.

The big bang

Even before the Arriva buses officially took to the roads, it was clear that any turbulence risked undermining the new service network, which might well have been designed with scientific precision but seemed to lack flexibility.

The slightest deviation from plans - such as the decision of George Pullicino's Ministry to pedestrainise Bisazza Street - sent shockwaves across Gatt's ministry as it created a domino effect on the whole system, since all buses passing from Sliema were forced to take a longer route.

What Delia and Transport Malta clearly did not anticipate was that the whole system was to implode on the very first day, when more than a quarter of the drivers did not turn up to work after protesting about the rosters.

This effectively meant that a quarter, sometimes half, of the buses that should have been on the road at any time were simply not there. 

Most of drivers who did not turn up for work on the first day were former drivers, thus raising the suspicion of a final act of deliberate sabotage against the rest of the country by the old guard.

But it was not just the absent drivers who were causing problems.

Amidst the mayhem caused by the drivers' no-show, commuters started discovering that many of the new routes were longer than the old ones and that it took more time to arrive from point A to point B, especially if commuters were left stranded at one of the infamous interchanges.

No wonder that the real time computerised displays informing the public when the bus is arriving failed to materialise, as promised in July. It is only now that the system has stabilised that this important aspect of the reform is finally materialising, at least on certain bus stops.

Saving graces

Regardless, there surely were a few saving graces of the reform; namely the air-conditioned environmentally friendly buses, the dirt-cheap €6.50 week tickets (cheaper than two bus tickets a day in the old system) and the courteous drivers who patiently dealt with the commuters' complaints.

Gozo as a whole also saw a radical improvement in its public transport system, which at that point was practically nonexistent.

While many complained about the quality of service under the old regime, the bad state of the buses and the brusque manners of drivers few commuters complained about the established routes.

The question that many commuters posed was: why on earth would you bother to change the only thing that seemed to work under the old system?

In normal circumstances, the answer was simple: the old routes, which required everyone to travel to Valletta before heading elsewhere, were not attracting any new users. But amidst the midsummer mayhem, new users were simply put off by a mixture of exaggerated and real fears while many old commuters were being left stranded, a walking advert against using the new buses.

No chance for interchanges

On balance, one can say that the interchange system was never given a fair chance to work.

There was no way of knowing that the routes would have undergone a baptism of fire in such a turbulent context, where a quarter of the drivers failed to show up.

In reality, few could appreciate the interchange system once it was forced to function in a situation where the second bus needed for a journey showed up full, half an hour late, or not at all.

But the phobia against interchanges also reflected a reaction against a radical change imposed on the travel patterns of commuters, a large percentage of which consisted of elderly people who had grown accustomed to the old system. 

Instead of changing the routes incrementally by responding to new needs in successive waves of public consultation, the government opted for a brusque new beginning, which was immediately foiled by the failure of many former drivers to show up for work on the first day. 

With hindsight, one of the lessons of the reform is that a roadmap over a period of time to change the old routes could well have been preferable to a reform which looked perfectly good on paper but has turned out to be very deficient in practise.

In fact there was a lot of sense in creating a network which connects different localities without the need to go to Valletta to catch another bus by creating multiple hubs and encouraging commuters to use of other interchanges along the route instead of Valletta to get to their destination.

This was a recommendation made by Halcrow Group Limited - one of the UK's leading consultancies on engineering and transport projects in a report drawn up in November 2008 together with Transport Malta and the Transport Ministry.

Experts consistently advised that the 'all buses lead to Valletta' system reflected out-dated travelling patterns which only applied to already-existing commuters - an ever-dwindling group - and would fail to attract any new commuters. Anyone else who needed to go elsewhere was resorting to cars, especially for very short distances.

Still, instead of attracting new commuters, the mayhem of Arriva's first week of service ended up scaring away former users, who switched back to their car. This resulted in even greater congestion and confusion on the roads.  

Congested roads

All this ended up in a series of partial revision of routes which culminated in the government's U-turn to restore the old Valletta-based routes and the appointment of a task-force led by the Prime Minister himself to address road congestion, a problem which should have been addressed before the reform.

In fact, one of the most damning admissions by Arriva chief Executive David Martins was that the company had underestimated the amount of congestion on Maltese roads.  Martins gave the example of Paola, where the traffic in the square was so bad that it took a bus 20 minutes to get from one bus stop to another which was three minutes away.

This admission exposed a serious shortcoming on the part of those who planned the reform.

The transport reform has surely exposed bottle necks - like Mrabat Street in Sliema - which should not be blamed on buses but on the road network itself. It also exposed the failure of successive government to address the problems posed by the increase in the number of cars on our roads.

A question of subsidy?

One of the feats of the reform was the reduction of subsidies to public transport from €7.2 million given to the Public Transport Association to €4.8 million a year for the decade covered by the contract with Arriva. 

Another €1.4 million will subsidise public transport in Gozo, which was previously not subsidised.

With bus tickets kept relatively cheap, especially in view of the availability of the €6.50 weekly tickets and newer buses providing a service till 11:00pm to most localities, something had to give.

The official reason why subsidies were reduced is that there is a radical difference in the way subsidy is given now, when compared to the past.

Under the old system, subsidies were based on the difference between what was calculated as a fair income to bus drivers and what was actually earned from ticket sales. That basically meant that the less passengers the service carried, the more subsidy was paid.

Subsidy is now a product of an international competition that forced bidders to claim the least possible subsidy in the tender stage to win the contract. But it is also possible that Arriva's bid was based on a route system devised to keep costs low.

One way of keeping costs down is by cramming routes together in long panoramic tours which require less buses and drivers to operate.

It is definitely a proven fact that despite all the studies made the original Arriva fleet of 266 buses was not enough to cater for the needs of the Maltese nation. Arriva had to import 36 new buses to cater for the various route revisions made over the past months.

In the rush to revise the route network, the government had to temporarily waive standards allowing Arriva to import buses with Euro 3 engines - a step that rekindled bad memories of half-baked reforms in the transport sector, which of a new set of buses saw the arrival to Malta which were discarded from the rest of Europe. 

The government will probably end up forking more subsidy to compensate Arriva for all the revisions made so far, although the government could offset the costs of these changes with Arriva's failure to honour contractual obligations during the first few months.

Another deficiency of the funding of the new system is the higher fares paid by non-Maltese residents, including EU citizens who have to pay a higher fare. Bizarrely, the dual fare system led to absurdities like drivers demanding the birth certificate of children to prove that they are Maltese. The system is arbitrary and defies the increasingly cosmopolitan identity of the Maltese nation. Quizzing anyone who looks foreign for an ID card sounds anachronistic. 

The differential fare system raises the prospect of an increase in the fares paid by Maltese residents in the event that an investigation by the EU commission finds the fare system discriminatory. 

An alternative to this mess would have been more expensive one-time and day tickets - generally used by tourists - and cheaper week and monthly tickets.

Where does the buck stop?

What struck a particularly raw nerve with the public was that, amidst all the chaos of the reform, nobody resigned.

As it turned out, Manuel Delia had in fact presented his resignation to Minister Austin Gatt, with Gatt himself presenting his resignation to the Prime Minister. But none of these resignations were announced to the public when presented, neither were any of them accepted.

Gatt only revealed Delia's resignation during a meeting of the PN's executive. It was only on 1 November, after Debono announced his abstention on the opposition's motion, that the Prime Minister revealed that Gatt had offered his resignation in a cabinet meeting held on 3 October.

Austin Gatt was saved from an opposition motion of censure only thanks to the speaker's casting vote and after the Prime Minister made it clear that the buck stopped with him.

All in all, the parliamentary debate characterised by generic and sometimes exaggerated statement by opposition MPs, proved sterile and failed in establishing responsibilities failures of the reform.

Perhaps the purpose of the motion would well have been better served through the appointment of a parliamentary committee with the power to grill all those responsible for the reform.

Faced with Franco Debono's abstention, the Prime Minister assumed full political responsibility for the blunders committed by his underlings. It is doubtful whether he had much choice for ditching Gatt would have fatally undermined the principle of collegiality in his cabinet.

It was only after saving Gatt in parliament that Gonzi proceeded to appoint a task force presided by himself to coordinate the various aspects of the reform. In this way, the Prime Minister downsized Gatt while taking the risk of giving his own face to an embattled reform.

The fact that the public transport system has improved considerably in the past weeks augurs well for Gonzi's reputation as a problem solver but it speaks volumes on the competence of his 'collegial' government. 

Regaining lost trust?

The greatest cost of this courageous but mishandled reform is that it could have undermined trust in public transport among a large section of the population.

Although complaints have decreased over the past weeks and the service has improved, it is doubtful whether those who reverted back to car use because of the panic of the first months will give Arriva a second chance.

For it is always easier to lose one's reputation, than to win it back. 

It is even more doubtful whether car users will shift to public transport, at least in the short term.   

This is most unfortunate because many people were too scared by what they read on the newspapers to even try the new service.

Even in places like San Gwann, Sliema and Gozo, where the system has worked properly for months and kept on improving over the past weeks, many still shun the new service out of fear of being left stranded.  

But ultimately, the reform's worst enemy proved to be the high expectations fuelled by decades of mismanagement and the promise of a quick-fix solution. High expectations ended up multiplying the disappointment of the public in the face of the slightest mishap. Even a freak accident, like the bus which crushed into a home in Marsascala, was interpreted as a sign of Arriva's incompetence.

Politicians may even make the calculation that the cost of disappointing high expectations generated by reforms is higher than the cost of keeping the status quo. Ultimately, that would be the most dangerous fallout of the Arriva debacle.