Walter Finch
A MALIGNED transport company has vowed to increase the number of buses along the coast if it sees enough demand for it.
It comes as an Olive Press survey found that there is huge dissatisfaction with the service provided by Avanza between the towns of the western Costa del Sol.
The online poll of residents in Manilva, Estepona and Marbella found that a huge majority (87%) declared public transport to be ‘a problem’ along the coast.
Some 40% said the poor bus services were a ‘big problem’ for them personally.
And nearly half (47%) said that, although they owned cars, they still agreed public transport was a serious problem.
A spokesperson for Avanza told the Olive Press they tailor the number of buses per route to the demand.
This raises the possibility it could increase the frequency if residents’ experiences were taken seriously.
In other positive developments, she insisted Avanza was working to add all their bus routes to Google Maps, raising hopes that residents could soon reliably know when a bus is coming.
She also added they were working to install card machines to ‘a large number of our routes’, reducing the need to carry cash.
With local elections around the corner, Olive Press readers will need to pressure the town halls to get the state of public transport on the agenda.
Only pressure from above will force the bus companies to shape up and provide a useable service to the thousands of people who don’t have cars.
READ MORE:
- OLIVE PRESS OPINION: It should be a basic no-brainer to run reliable buses up and down the coast
- ‘Disgusting, frustrating, nightmare, shambles:’ Residents in Spain’s Costa del Sol vent their feelings at the region’s public transport
The problem is not a lack of cash mashines, the problem is the lack of visible bus stops with a readable time table. And the complete lack of bus stops INSIDE the various urbanizations. People have always to walk downhill (and back uphill) for one to three miles just to arrive at a bus stop along the A7 trunk road. How Avanza wants to ask the many tourists for their demand, who are only at the costa for some weeks and do rent a rentcar just BECAUSE no public transport is available? Even many 4 and 5 star hotels have no access to a bus stop. Who is keen of carrying his heavy luggage for one mile by foot to the next bus stop? This is a matter for the tourism industry not just for Avanza bus company.