The ferry service between Valletta, Sliema and Cottonera attracted just over 440,000 Tallinja card holders last year, together with a further 1.2m passengers who purchased tickets for the service, according to figures provided by Transport Malta.

The service was made free for Tallinja card holders in January last year, in an effort to encourage people to use the crossings as part of their daily commute.

But the figures show that the ferry remains largely the domain of passengers, many of them believed to be tourists, who do not own a Tallinja card and pay for their fare.

In practice, only one in every four ferry passengers had their fee waived.

When asked how these figures compare to previous years, Transport Malta said they are unable to provide data for previous periods.

‘300,000 more passengers’: Chris Bonett

Transport minister Chris Bonett nonetheless told press on Monday that the service is becoming increasingly popular amongst local commuters, insisting that “the number of Maltese using this service continued to increase since the service was made free for cardholders”.

“Between January and November last year more than 1.5m passengers made use of this service. This is an increase of 300,000 passengers who used this service," he said.

He did not clarify whether the 300,000 passengers were Tallinja card holders or fare paying. 

This is not the first time that Bonett has said that the number of ferry passengers is surging.

Shortly after the service was made free last year, he had said that the number of ferry passengers had jumped by 42,000 in February alone, compared to the same month in the previous year.

Bonett has pledged to implement a wider ferry service across Malta’s shores, pointing to sea transport as one of the solutions to Malta’s transport woes.