The fiasco of the public transport

Two years ago, the Maltese public has been promised a revolution of the public transport. This revolution ends this year. Back in 2011, the Arriva consortium composed of the British transport operator and Tumas Group had won the tender to operate the Maltese public transport for the coming 10 years, a public transport which has been designed by Transport Malta with the help of some transport experts who probably have never taken a bus in Malta. King (L)Kong buses have been introduced to the Maltese roads, thanks for the Tumas Group as being their local agent. Back in 2011, Mr Bastow, CEO of Arriva was saying that “the vision of the Maltese government and Transport Malta is for a 21st century public transport system. Arriva and our consortium partners, the Tumas Group, and suppliers such as King Long, have the skills and expertise to make that vision a reality”. Unfortunately this vision ended in a financial nightmare, for Arriva and for the public. Already back in 2012, Tumas Group had sold silently its 33% share in the consortium, an indication that Tumas Group already did not see any future in Arriva or by the end of the day, was only interested in selling the buses. The public quickly realised that the new public transport could not deliver its expectations, due to mainly two factors: the already saturated road network which makes it impossible to operate timely any scheduled service, and the buses who clearly were oversized for the local roads. Arriva has since reported losses of over 30 millions euros while the government has paid out subsidies amounting to 23 millions euros. From 1st January, Transport Malta will take over the operations of Arriva for a transitional period, and it has committed itself to maintain the workforce of over 1200 employees. This certainly has a cost: so far the government has not published the price it will have to pay for the take over nor the monthly expected operational expenses (only the salaries will amount to 300000 euros a month). The government is also very silent on the call of interest for the service of a public transport: it takes normally months of studies to design a public transport system fit for the local environment, and it also requires the involvement of Transport Malta which would certainly have to provide the infrastructure (bus lanes for example). Further to this, the fact that Arriva, one of the most respected and experienced providers of public transport services, has failed to deliver an efficient public transport service in Malta, is certainly not making it very easy to find new companies participating in the tender.
And finally, how is that temporary nationalisation of a private public transport company compatible with EU laws? This rather looks to me similar to the case of Air Malta a few years ago, when it required government fund injection to be able to survive.

Will the public ever get to know what Arriva actually had proposed to the government to be able to achieve the set targets?

The most natural way would just have been Arriva filing for liquidation and a new call for tender to be issued after a study made by independent transportation professionals, and not burdening a potential new service provider with an existing oversized bus fleet and work force.