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I’m sorry this is not the issue on my mind right now. I have to come up with an emergency bus service, I have a bus strike going on, and all you ask me is about the bus ticketing machines. I know it’s your pet story but it’s not on my mind at the moment. - Jesmond Mugliett
Karl Schembri
Devoting its energies to investigate the leak of the confidential bus ticketing faults log book to MaltaToday, the Transport Authority is refusing to publish the maintenance bill covering more than 100 faults monthly since the ticket machines were installed in July 2003.
Last Sunday, MaltaToday exposed the extent of daily faults reported in the authority’s log book between November 2003 and June this year, but the expenses involved in calling Alberta Fire Detection and Alarm Systems for repairs and maintenance remain a mystery as yet again, chairman Mark Portelli refused to answer questions sent by this newspaper.
According to authority spokesperson Daniela Borg Mizzi, the questions “are at the chairman’s office” but she could not give any answers without his authorisation.
But for the last week, the chairman and high ranking officers were busy interrogating authority staff in a bid to find MaltaToday’s sources, without providing any answers to the questions raised by the information revealed on this newspaper.
The Lm1.1 million “state of the art” bus ticketing system has seen a staggering incidence of everyday faults, with 388 buses out of 500 affected at least once, and with ticket vending machines and data depots breaking down at least once every two days.
In almost every case out of the 2,131 registered, Alberta technicians were called for repairs.
The spokesperson for Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett said the minister was on holiday so he could not comment, but when contacted Friday, in the midst of the bus drivers’ strike crisis, Mugliett said: “I’m sorry this is not the issue on my mind right now. I have to come up with an emergency bus service, I have a bus strike going on, and all you ask me is about the bus ticketing machines. I know it’s your pet story but it’s not on my mind at the moment.”
Asked whether he would order the authority to publish its agreement with Alberta, the minister promised he would reply when the bus drivers’ dispute is solved.
Meanwhile Mugliett’s predecessor, Censu Galea, who is now Minister for Competitiveness, told MaltaToday that he “was not really impressed” with the number of faults registered although he agreed that an audit would help clear things out.
It was under Galea, and former Transport Authority Chairman Charles Demicoli, that Alberta got the tender to install and maintain all the bus ticketing system.
About the faults log book, Galea said he was not aware of its existence as it was a technical responsibility of the authority.
“One needs to look at the type of faults that have been registered, to determine how many of them are triggered by the bus drivers’ resistance to the new system,” Galea said. “All in all, when you consider that there are around 30 million bus ticket transactions a year, I consider 2,000 faults over 19 months quite low. But it would be interesting to analyse which drivers are registering the same faults repeatedly because as you reported, there seem to be only a certain number of buses which keep cropping up on the log book. How do you explain that over 100 buses never reported a fault?”
Indeed, explanations are in short supply as both the authority and Alberta remain tight lipped about the faults.
Last week, Alberta’s project manager in charge of the system, Derek Broadley, refused to discuss faults figures and the maintenance agreement.
“Frankly it’s none of your business,” he said. “These figures you’re quoting mean nothing to me. All I’ll tell you is that, at any one time, the system is operating at 99.8 per cent availability.”
The log book reveals that ticket machines on board buses are afflicted with daily memory losses, system errors, printers and buttons getting stuck, loose wire connections, malfunctioning ticket guillotines and blown fuses, while ticket vending machines and data downloading booths are out of order every two days.
The faultiest bus is nr 623, with 23 faults registered in one year, mostly about memory loss, no electricity current, stuck buttons and blown fuses.
While the Transport Authority has declined to answer questions about the maintenance costs involved, spokesperson Daniela Borg Mizzi did admit the maintenance contract forming part of a three-year installation tender agreement with Alberta, provided only “for a fixed number of monthly interventions”. With more than 100 faults monthly, the extra expenses remain a mystery.
Read more:
maltatoday.com.mt/2005/08/14/top_story.html
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