Specialised airport buses in the pipeline

Malta Public Transport plans to purchase a set of new buses to operate routes between the airport and towns across the island. They will be specialised, with racks in which passengers can place their luggage on and USB sockets in which they can charge their phones.

This was announced by MPT chairman Felipe Cosmen at a press conference at the Hilton to commemorate the second anniversary since Spanish company Autobuses de Leon privatised Malta's bus service.

Since then, he said, buses have carried over 83 million passengers - 40 million in 2015 and 43 million in 2016.

"These figures demonstrate that public confidence in public transport is growing steadily, although I insist that we don't carry numbers, but rather people with their own histories."

Without providing figures, Cosmen also announced that MPT broke even last year, the first time the national bus company has done so since 2011.

He reeled off positive figures previously provided by transport minister Joe Mizzi, such as that 95% of trips ate now departing within their scheduled timeframes and that complaints about bus service declined by 75% between 2015 and 2016. Some 80% of passengers now use the tallinja card, and over 100,000 people have downloaded the tallinja app onto their phones.

The fleet was also increased by 176 new environmentally friendly buses over the past two years, up to 380 vehicles.