The Malta Transport Authority (ADT) yesterday admitted it had not tested any cars reported by SMS throughout 2008 saying it was working on a new automated system to filter such information.

While it apologised for temporarily suspending tests on reported vehicles, the ADT said that emissions tests were still being carried out by VRT stations, by road-side inspections and by random checks on private passenger-carrying and goods-carrying vehicles, including public transport buses, coaches, trucks and other heavy vehicles.

The transport watchdog was reacting to a damning report, tabled in Parliament by the Auditor General, which revealed that the ADT had ignored text messages sent in by citizens reporting vehicles that were belching thick, black smoke into the air.

Vehicle emissions are a major source of air pollution, which impacts negatively on public health and the environment. Their effects are further aggravated by Malta's high vehicle density and the fact that the average age of cars is much higher than the EU average.

According to the report, the public reported 30 per cent of the public transport vehicles, 10 per cent of commercial vehicles and four per cent of private vehicles.

In its reply, the ADT said it had conducted just over 1,300 random road-side tests on coaches and buses since 2005. Of these, 743 failed the test. Between October 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007, it had summoned a total of 1,200 vehicles for testing on the basis of text messages it had received. Of these, 721 vehicles were tested and a licence restriction was issued to the remaining 479 that failed to turn up for their appointment.

Licence restrictions do not allow owners to renew their vehicle licence before it passed the emissions test.

With regard to the temporary suspension of the SMS-generated emissions tests, the ADT said its initiative to revamp and automate the manual and time-consuming SMS filtering process had been "opportunely not mentioned by the (Auditor's) report".

Once the new system was in place, it would call up for emission testing those vehicles reported by three or more SMS messages over the past months.

Since the report was tabled in Parliament, several people posted comments on timesofmalta.com with many calling it "a waste of people's time and money". Despite knowing it had not summoned any reported vehicles for testing since last year, the ADT still urged the public to continue sending reports on 5061 1899.

mxuereb@timesofmalta.com