Arriva Malta

[ReverendFozz]

Looks like the Maltese are Cross after Arriva sent a load of bendy buses after BoJo wanted rid...Tourists are even threatening a boycott.

Tourists visiting Malta driven round the bendby the unpopular buses that BoJo rejected

Tourists visiting Malta are being driven round the bend by the on-going bus saga which is blighting the tiny island with some now vowing never to return.

A series of bendy buses rejected by London mayor Boris Johnson ended up on the winding, narrow streets of the former British colony.But they were instantly unpopular, clogging up the roads to the fury of motorists. Worse was to come when three of them caught fire last month forcing the Maltese transport authorities to order them off the road.The move has left bus operator Arriva with too few buses to operate a full service. Tourists and commuters are furious and*The Malta Independent*reported today that visitors have contacted reporters, promising to avoid the island until the issue is resolved.Many buses on the most popular routes are becoming too full and cannot stop to let more passengers on. It has led to lengthy waits as numerous buses drive by without picking people up.Transport Malta has told Arriva it does not want the bendy buses to return, even if the safety concerns that have caused the fires are addressed.Sunderland-based Arriva, however, signed a 10-year deal to run the bus service in 2010 which means the authorities are powerless to order them to be removed.Arriva hit problems from the day its first buses began to operate in Malta. Many drivers went on strike and UK drivers had to be flown over. Bendy buses then began to get stuck in the Maltese streets.Of the fires, Arriva said: “The safety of our passengers, employees and vehicles is central to our operations. To have incidents occur so closely together is extremely rare and as a result we are taking the precautionary step of bringing our vehicles in for a series of checks before returning them into active service.”The buses are seen to be too wide for the island's roads although they do fit within the maximum guidelines lay down by Transport Malta. The situation is costing Arriva Malta about €30,000 each day since coaches have been drafted in to help with the shortfall of bus numbers.Victor Bonnett, the information and support services executive for the Malta Tourism Authority, said: “Unfortunately, the new designed routes take you half way around Malta in order to save money on buses – that is the problem when an accountant comes in with an Excel sheet and dictates with no real knowledge of what the people need, want or require.”The bus crisis in Malta is being watched carefully in the Isle of Man too. Bus Vannin wants to introduce bendy buses to the island to save £300,000 in staffing and fuel costs as well as £3m of capital costs in replacing older buses but a month-long trial resulted in breakdowns.Making the Maltese crossDavid Crookes shares his experience of the Maltese bus serviceIt is easy to share the frustration of passengers in Malta.Having just spent two weeks in blissful sun on this small island in the middle of the Mediterranean, my wife and I had just one major decision to make: to sit by the pool or risk losing hours of our holiday on a frustrating adventure on Malta's buses.The last time I was in Malta, the buses seemed to run rather well. Old and uncomfortable they may have been, the drivers were nonetheless proud of them. After all, they owned their own buses and some had been passed down through generations.They nipped around the streets with the greatest of ease and seemed, if memory serves well, to get passengers to their destination in a reasonable amount of time.The buses also seemed to have enough seats to go round. Not any more if our two weeks is anything to go by.Having taken a trip to Mellieha Bay, we ended up waiting for 90 minutes as bus after bus went past without stopping, each one full. Our journey back to St Julian's – which involved us getting a bus in the opposite direction towards to ferry terminal and then back again.As we got closer to St Julian's, we continued to pass packed bus stops of passengers, each frustrated that our bus was unable to stop.The journey, including waiting, ended up taking a total of four hours which was longer than the air journey from Manchester to Malta. Subsequent bus journeys were much the same.We were cross. The Maltese are cross. And it's no surprise to see why.

 

[MCR247]

Ex-London bendy buses catching fire?!

 

[mbonwick]

From what I've heard its not so much to do with the buses as how the staff are maintaining them (or not!)

Malta can't have it both ways - they either put up with bendis to get capacity, or renegotiate Arriva's contract to ban then and get more rigid vehicles in. The authorities knew all along that the plan was to use bendis...

 

[anthony263]

Ex-London bendy buses catching fire?!

Well the ones in Bristol and Brighton havent caught fire yet.

(Watch now one will this week because I have said that )

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ex-London bendy buses catching fire?!

Three in one month..hock: Mind you, Malta is a tad warmer than London normally.

 

[Squaddie]

Looks like the Maltese are Cross after Arriva sent a load of bendy buses after BoJo wanted rid...Tourists are even threatening a boycott.[/URL]

This was reported in the Guardian almost two years ago.

 

[Greenback]

HAving visited Malta last year, I can confirm that bendy buses are completely unsuited to the roads and streets of the island. We did use a couple of the normal buses and they seemed fine.

I think that part of the problem is that the Maltese generally loved their vintage buses and were pretty annoyed anyway when Arriva came in and the whole system changed. Never midn the fact that the newer buses are more comfortable and more efficient.

 

[3141]

Arriva will withdraw from Malta at the beginning of 2014. It has reached an agreement with the government which will buy its assets, except for the articulated buses, and take over a part of its debt. Arriva Malta is said to have lost up to €50 million since it began its operations in 2011. They must also be concerned about the damage to their reputation.

The government intends to operate the bus service through Transport Malta for some months, and then seek expressions of interest for a new private operator to take over. I am not optimistic. Any new operator is likely to require a lot more subsidy if it is to meet the sort of standards that were expected of Arriva.

The positive aspects of Arriva Malta were its modern air-conditioned buses with Euro 5 engines, the much greater timetable and other information it provided, and its well-trained drivers. (Though, having visited Malta twelve times since 2005 I think the existing drivers had also improved somewhat.)

But it had several problems. The new route structure was imposed by Transport Malta and based on a report commissioned from Halcrow Partners, but it didn’t meet the requirements of bus users. Several new routes and extra buses had to be added as a result of experience during the first few months of Arriva’s operations. Timekeeping was a major problem. Under the old system, a driver might divert off the official route if he encountered a delay, but this option wasn’t available for Arriva. The biggest cause of timekeeping difficulties is the amount of traffic congestion. The bendybuses didn’t help in that context, though there were some routes on which they were suitable, and most of the new King Longs were a metre longer than any previous service buses in Malta.

The condition of many roads is also a problem. Many of the older owner-driven buses were in service for only half the week, so their owners had time to repair them. Arriva’s buses were much more intensively used and the amount of damage they suffered from poor roads became very noticeable.

It’s interesting that on Gozo Arriva’s reputation is much higher. Gozo is much less densely populated than Malta and traffic congestion is not a serious problem, so Arriva were able to run a good service there.

On Maltese websites some strong feelings are expressed about the bus service, some of them a long way from reality, with talk about expecting a “state of the art” service. Apart from being pretty meaningless that expectation is also unrealistic on a congested island with poor roads and the government trying to limit the public transport subsidy.

So in drawing up a specification for potential new operators to bid against the government will have to think very carefully about what it wants to achieve and whether it is willing to pay for it.

I shall be visiting Malta again in April and will be interested to see how the bus service is performing.

 

[mbonwick]

From what I gather, the portion of the debt the government is taking on relates mainly to the new vehicles purchased.

I'm really not convinced by this whole talk of 'debts'...I suspect its more like extreme operating losses stemming from accounts that aren't actually due to be paid until the end of the financial year.
To put it in context, to me it sounds like saying First Scotland East has a £4m debt rather than the reality which is it made a £4m operating loss.

 

[Robertj21a]

The Maltese will always spend most of their time arguing about other people, usually politicians, rather than recognise their own failings. An island (even more insular than many) that seems to struggle with many modern day activities that are taken for granted in other countries, couple with a lack of appreciation for how much things cost.

Unfortunately, Arriva failed to take into account the very unique nature of the Maltese.

Robert

 

[3141]

The Scottish bus company McGills has decided not to proceed with its application to operate Malta’s bus service because of lack of openness by the Maltese government

The Chief Executive, Ralph Roberts, said they had a "gut feeling" that excessive state interference would prevent them running a profitable service.

“There were more questions than answers. I submitted about 30 questions where I needed further information which they have not provided.

"Their first option was to have someone take over an effectively nationalised service and assume the assets and liabilities.

"While they made that clear up front, they didn't say what this amounted to, so we had no idea what the liabilities were, what the assets were, what the revenue was, or the patronage numbers.

"We're businessmen so we're analytical, but we operate on gut and it just didn't feel right. I've been involved in negotiations all over Europe, and the Maltese government's way is not the way you do negotiations."

Any potential bidder to run bus services in Malta will be very cautious after the disastrous experience Arriva went through. If potential bidders don’t feel they are getting all the information they need not many of them will be making a bid.

Perhaps the government hopes the absence of any bidders will make it possible to keep the bus operations under state control.

 

[Robertj21a]

.



A British firm in the race for Malta’s public transport service has expressed concern over the viability of the deal as laid out in the call for expression of interest issued by the government, Times of Malta has learnt.

In a letter sent to Transport Minister Joe Mizzi last week, the National Express Group warned it would be “difficult, if not impossible” for any private organisation to successfully achieve the government’s aspirations at the price it was proposing.

The letter was sent by the managing director of National Express, Andrew Cleaves, a few days before McGill’s, Scotland’s fourth-largest bus operator, said it had withdrawn its interest in running bus services in Malta.

McGill’s chief executive, Ralph Roberts, said the company took the decision to withdraw its interest because of “lack of openness” by the Maltese government.

National Express Group is a leading transport provider delivering services in the UK, North America, Germany, Spain and Morocco. Every year more than 800 million journeys are made on its buses, trains, light rail services and coaches.

‘Proposed regime is too great a risk for us’

In his letter, seen by The Sunday Times of Malta, Mr Cleaves expressed serious doubts on the viability of the public transport system as the government wanted it.

“We have assessed the expression of interest notice published on January 27 closely and I am very sorry to say that, in its current format, National Express would be unable to respond positively to that notice,” he told Mr Mizzi.

Although he confirmed receiving the letter, Mr Mizzi told this newspaper he did not know its details as he had immediately passed it on to Transport Malta to see if there was anything it needed to tell the company or if any questions needed to be answered.

He remembered meeting representatives of the National Express Group in Malta back in December “as I met anyone who wanted to meet me in connection with this bid”.

Mr Cleaves refers to this meeting in his letter, saying it was held to discuss key aspects of contracting and the balance of risk transfer related to labour, operations and maintenance, the financing of vehicles and revenue generation and collection.

However, he warned the minister the regime being proposed by the government and Transport Malta was not sustainable.

“I am afraid the regime set out in the notice presents too great a risk for us to reasonably be able to manage the network successfully for both you and the National Express Group.

“Indeed, I am concerned that, as it stands, it would be difficult if not impossible for any private organisation to successfully achieve the outcomes you aspire to at a price that would be agreeable to the public purse,” Mr Cleaves said. He proposed meeting to discuss these points in further detail with the aim of reaching an agreeable solution.





When contacted, Mr Cleaves refused to discuss the details of the letter.

“I’m afraid I cannot comment on the contents of a private letter,” he said in reply to an e-mail.

He also refused to state whether the National Express Group was still interested in bidding for the Maltese public transport service, saying: “I’m sorry, but we won’t be commenting further.”

Asked for a reaction to the British company’s concerns that the service being proposed by the government was unsustainable, Mr Mizzi said: “There are other companies that expressed interest and these are not agreeing with what this company is saying.

“All correspondence received was passed on to Transport Malta.”

The Maltese government is looking for a new operator for the public transport service following multinational Arriva’s withdrawal from the island after sustaining losses of €70 million in just under three years.

In January, the government took over the bus service, which is now being run by Malta Public Transport Services, until a new operator is in place. A call for expression of interest was issued and closes on April 7.

The largest bus operator in Scotland, McGill’s, was “seriously considering” bidding for Malta’s public transport service tender but has pulled out of the race, leaving National Express Group and others in the race, which include the old bus service operators.

 

[3141]

As far as I can tell, the latest situation is that one company from outside Malta and two from within have expressed interest in running the bus service there.

Joe Mizzi, the Transport Minister, appears to be accepting that the cost of running a modern bus service will be considerably more than the subsidy previously agreed with Arriva - which was demonstrated to be insufficient, as Arriva made substantial losses during the two and a half years they ran the service.

Transport for Malta appears currently to be spending more on maintenance than Arriva did, with fewer vehicles off the road. Ridership has been reported to have increased, but revenue will be down because the higher fares previously paid by non-residents have had to be scrapped, and the buses are used by large numbers of tourists.

Many things remain to be resolved, so watching this space is going to be interesting.

 

[winston270twm]

As far as I can tell, the latest situation is that one company from outside Malta and two from within have expressed interest in running the bus service there.

Joe Mizzi, the Transport Minister, appears to be accepting that the cost of running a modern bus service will be considerably more than the subsidy previously agreed with Arriva - which was demonstrated to be insufficient, as Arriva made substantial losses during the two and a half years they ran the service.

Transport for Malta appears currently to be spending more on maintenance than Arriva did, with fewer vehicles off the road. Ridership has been reported to have increased, but revenue will be down because the higher fares previously paid by non-residents have had to be scrapped, and the buses are used by large numbers of tourists.

Many things remain to be resolved, so watching this space is going to be interesting.

The company from outside Malta is NX group Spanish subsidiary ALSA:

http://www.independent.com.mt/artic...0-million-to-run-public-transport-4578050048/