Comments on: What price all that fuss about Arriva, now?

By: Alex Grima

Alex Grima — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 00:26:00 +0000

Apologise? The Times of Malta won’t even admit error on this one. https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2760/3475/original.jpg

By: canon

canon — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 23:29:00 +0000

You must be living in cloud cuckoo land.

By: callixtus

callixtus — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 17:14:00 +0000

Nice group photo in Brussels today. Cecilia Malmstrom next to Joe Mizzi. Excellent balance.

By: chico

chico — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 14:27:00 +0000

Subsidies apart, I use the service regularly and though there is plenty of room for further improvement, the current service is far better than that provided by Arriva, including the type of buses employed, frequency, and ticketing procedures.

By: Shameelna

Shameelna — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 11:53:00 +0000

The old buses were never sold, they are still rotting in that field at Tal-Balal.

By: pete ross

pete ross — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 11:46:00 +0000

In reply to Daphne Caruana Galizia.

But he was ‘arrogant’.

//Sarc off:
Everytime I try to explain the great work that Austin Gatt had carried out for the Maltese people’s benefit (not for his own pocket or popularity) I get these people looking at me as if I had mentioned the devil.

Furthermore, what Muscat did to Arriva was just a name change and transformed it into a big money sucker for his cronies’ benefit while we the people fork out 26 million euros a year.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 11:29:00 +0000

Best service, my eye. They were disgusting, inconvenient, and you couldn’t get into them if you used a stick, a wheelchair or a pushchair.

And the drivers, because they literally owned the bus, felt empowered to throw you off it and to treat it as an extension of their living-room.

Besides which, they were not Maltese buses because Malta never had a bus-building industry.

By: nutmeg

nutmeg — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 11:26:00 +0000

We keep writing about Arriva as if it were a disaster. It wasn’t. The new service brought us new routes (regularly updated), planned schedule combinations, clean buses, eco engines, marked bus shelters, mannered drivers.

Articulated buses were a timely introduction too. The most radical change, however, was the shift in mentality: commuters now expected efficient service whereas before we were happily surprised if we even received our change back.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 07:26:00 +0000

We’re it not for Austin Gatt, Malta would still be relying on independent drivers with personally- owned wrecks of buses running on adulterated fuel. Nobody wanted to take them on.

By: il-Fesu

il-Fesu — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 07:14:00 +0000

Prosit lill-Ministru ghax gab l-aqwa ‘deal’.Ghalhekk mar hu personalment Spanja biex jirranga maghhom.