Arriva Arriva: better off when worse off?

After two decades of being taken for a ride by promises of reforms, which always failed to materialise, expectations were sky high, especially among people who actually use buses rather than simply complain about the service.

The most unacceptable criticism of the reform came from those who are most detached from reality.

That is why I feel offended by the neo-colonial musings of British tourists lamenting the disappearance of old buses driven by over-worked drivers with a reputation, which preceded them.

Perhaps we should have retained a couple of buses driven by the most vernacular drivers simply to cater for British tourists. One condition for employment should be that selected drivers should be illiterate, unable to speak English and have a propensity for calling wild cat strikes.

But the disappointment expressed by those who arrived late to work on Monday was far more justified even if it has triggered a less justified epidemic of the “kemm konna ahjar meta konna aghar” (better off when worse off) syndrome.

And I have no doubt that anything is better than the service we had. Most of the old buses were not accessible to people with a pushchair or a wheel chair. Cars driving behind the behemoths choked in black smoke. And striking drivers held the country at ransom. 

In July 2008, it was not just a question of buses arriving late, but a four-day disruption of service amidst scenes of mayhem and disorder. 

Have all these dark memories faded? Arriva seems to have become the scapegoat of all the public transport frustrations which have accumulated over the past decades.

Its failures also serve as a convenient justification for hip people to keep using their private car despite past promises of switching to public modes “if we are given a decent service.”

Surely Arriva should have known better. Failing very high expectations on the first day of service is one of the greatest public relations blunders in history, one which makes it harder for people to ever trust the public transport system again.

But still, one has to recognise that something positive has happened on our roads: there is less pollution and bravado. And definitely less odour of perspiring bodies on buses.

Dirt cheap service

And this change came at a minimum cost for the consumer.

A bus ticket which can be used for two hours costs €1.30, compared to 94 cents for a dual journey on the old system. 

A day ticket – which can be used innumerable times during any particular day – costs just €1.50 cheaper than four bus rides on the old system.

And a week ticket, which can be used for any number of journeys, costs just €6.50 – less than 93 cents a day, or exactly the same price of two bus rides on the old system.

And thanks to the air-conditioning, I’ve discovered the pleasure of going to work fresh and clean. 

Arriva’s late coming

Arriva was expected to deliver on two counts: quality of service and reducing the time to commute from point A to point B.

So far, they have delivered on the first count but not on the second count.

The latter failure can be partially explained by the failure of 56 drivers to turn up for work on the first day of service, thus earning a well-merited sack. 

In the long term, this may well prove to be a case of good riddance of bad rubbish for Arriva as it has freed it from being held at ransom by a section whose actions defy the instructions of the General Workers Union, which is now the legitimate representative of the drivers.

But the failure to have a contingency plan raises the question: will the service be completely disrupted if there is a bout of influenza flu?

Apart from this, some commuters have been blaming long-winded quasi-panoramic routes for the length of the journeys. This seems to be especially the case in southern localities.

My travel diary

Since my wife has a car and works in Valletta I have got used to split my journey between car and bus. 

She drives me from  B’Kara to Msida or Valletta after we accompany our son to child care in Santa Venera or to my parents’ house in Sliema.

For the past year I have taken either bus 42, which used to leave Valletta at around 7.15am or bus 141, which used to leave at 7.30am. Both buses, which took different routes, arrived at San Gwann at 8am.

On Monday – the second day of the Arriva service – I arrived at the Valletta terminus at 7.30am but only managed to get to work at 9.15am.

Partially, this could be blamed on the fact that the bus left the terminus at 8.00am – a delay probably caused by the absence of 10% of its workforce. 

But it was also due to the length of route 23,which goes to San Gwann via Sliema and the Mrabat road traffic gridlock. The bus goes all the way to Ghajn Tuffieha.

Most people on the bus (who like me were directed towards San Gwann) had no idea that they were taking a long-winded route. As soon as the bus took the turn to Msida on its way to Sliema, people started grumbling, “Why are you not passing from Tal-Qroqq?” someone asked.

Clearly this route should not be taken from Valletta but from Sliema. On Tuesday I took the same bus from Sliema and arrived to work in a few minutes after waiting for 15 minutes at the bus stop.  

On Friday, I took bus 22 (which passes from the same route to San Gwann) at 7.15am from Msida. I arrived at the Xwieki bus stop near MediaToday at 7.42am. The lesson is: avoid Mrabat road at all costs during peak traffic hour.

The alternative to that is taking bus 32.

Thanks to this route on Thursday I registered a personal record. I was already sitting on my desk 7.45am, the earliest I have ever been to work in the past couple of years. 

I took route 32, a circular bus that goes to San Gwann through Tal-Qroqq and Mater Dei, from Msida. 

Perhaps I am just lucky.

Clearly my experience contrasts with that of many commuters complaining of waiting for hours for a bus. And I suspect that routes in the south are less well served than those in the ninth and tenth districts.

But it raises the question: is it just a problem of long-winded routes or of people getting used to the new network and use it to their advantage?

New dynamics

Moreover, does the public understand the dynamics of a system which deliberately encourages commuters to stay away from Valletta and to use various interchanges along the way?

During this week I was struck by the amount of people who did not have a clue of which bus takes them to their destination despite the clear signage on each stage and all the leaflets delivered in the past months. 

The Arriva website also has the facility where one can simply enter the point of departure and the destination point and one is offered all the possible connections.

But one should not forget that a large number of public transport users are elderly people who have got used to the old routes. 

Perhaps it would have been wise had Arriva organised town meetings in local councils to explain the system verbally.

An illustrated map including the various stages on each route would also have been helpful.

But what is most striking was the silence of civil society and local councils on the new bus routes before the service commenced. Surely some of the problems associated with the new routes could have been avoided if local councils took a more pro-active stance in the reform process.

The apotheosis of the Maltese driver

Despite these hiccups the great Arriva miracle was the apotheosis of the Maltese driver; from red neck bully to smartly dressed and courteous driver.

It was not just a question of appearances. But uniforms help in giving dignity to a job associated with men with tattoos and exposed hairy chests.

Drivers patiently dealt with the frustration of a disappointed public but also provided a service answering the constant interrogations of people asking them information on which route to take on each stop.

Gone are (finally!) the kitsch decorations, statues of Our Lady and pin up photos on dashboards. And no driver will impose country and western music on those unlucky enough to ride his bus.

But if the company fails to find new drivers to relieve pressure on its current crop of drivers, discontent could brew even among the new recruits.

I was talking to one of the new recruits a few months ago. When I asked him how come he accepted the job in view of the low wage offered (barely the minimum wage) he replied that conditions were good and he had plenty of time left to spend with his family and to do the odd job to round up his pay.

Unsurprisingly, he is disappointed with the new roster, which foresees split shifts, but unlike the “trouble makers” who did not turn up for work, he understands the need to make a few sacrifices in the first weeks.

One of the main thrusts of the public transport reform was that the public should not be exposed to the danger posed by drivers working long and inhumane 16-hour shifts, as happened till last week. 

Long shifts were one of the reasons why bus drivers where always on the brink of a nervous breakdown when confronting the public.

Lets hope that after the teething problems are solved, those responsible workers who gave their best on this difficult day are given what they were promised.

For in the end of the day, it was the courteous service offered by its new drivers which helped Arriva weather the challenging early days.

The ultimate lesson of all this is that normal salaried workers perform better than self-centred owners whose work practices hark back to the feudal mode of production. 

Ultimately, the greatest mistake Arriva will come to regret was employing a number of old drivers who never understood what providing a public service entails and seemed bent on joining Arriva simply to create more mayhem. 

Perhaps enticing more new Maltese recruits by increasing the pay offered  would prove less expensive than importing drivers from the UK.