Claim: Malta is the only country to offer free public transport and tallinja data shows that more Maltese citizens are using public transit.

Verdict: Luxembourg introduced free public transport two years before Malta did. Transport authorities say they don’t know how many bus users are Maltese and how many are foreign.

Defending a controversial decision to sacrifice EU funding intended to electrify Malta’s bus fleet to fund subsidies on private electric vehicles, Robert Abela argued that the Maltese public already enjoys the best possible incentive to use public transport.

“We give the best incentive that anyone can ever give to use public transport. We’re the only country that offers free public transport to anyone who resides in the Maltese islands. Free for everyone. Which country offers this?” Abela said.

Abela went on to brush aside claims, often made on social media, that public transport use remains broadly the domain of foreign nationals living in Malta.

“The narrative that it (public transport) is only used by foreign workers is absolutely untrue. Tallinja card data shows that uptake by the Maltese and Gozitan public is increasing and they are using public transport much more than they used to,” he said.

But both these claims deserve a closer look.

Is Malta the only country to offer free public transport?

Not quite, although Malta is definitely at the forefront of Europe’s zero-fare transit movement.

But Malta, which introduced its free bus service in October 2022, is neither the only nor the first EU country to adopt the measure.

Malta was beaten to the punch by fellow European minnows Luxembourg, which had launched its zero-fare public transport scheme a good two and a half years earlier in March 2020.

Like Malta, Luxembourg offers free transport across all its public transit network (buses, trains and trams) to anybody residing in the country.

But while tourists in Malta are required to buy a tourist travel card to pay for their bus or ferry trips, visitors to Luxembourg can also enjoy free travel.

With one of the highest rates of car ownership in Europe, Luxembourg hoped the scheme would bring about a modal shift, getting people out of their cars and slashing congestion and air pollution in the process.

To date, Malta and Luxembourg remain the only European nations to offer universal free public transport service, prompting a 2023 Greenpeace report to place the pair atop its ranking for countries with fair and affordable public transport.

But while larger countries are yet to take the leap into universal zero-fare transit, several other European cities of a similar size have been rolling out their own free transport schemes over the years.

Perhaps the best-known case is that of the Estonian capital of Tallinn, where zero-fare public transit was first introduced back in 2013, after three-quarters of its 426,000 residents backed the pledge in a referendum.

The Estonian government later offered to extend the scheme across all of Estonia’s 15 counties, although a handful passed on the offer.

Meanwhile, several French cities, from Dunkirk to Montpellier, have adopted similar schemes with Paris also reportedly mulling the idea, although it has yet to take the plunge.

And while the list of cities offering free public transit grows by the year, whether this measure alone is enough to get people to ditch their cars remains up for debate.

Malta introduced free public transport in late 2022. File photo

Are Maltese citizens using public transport more frequently?

While this may well be true, the reality is that nobody knows for sure.

While Abela claimed that tallinja card data shows an uptake in trips by Maltese and Gozitan citizens, transport authorities say that they don’t have any data to show this because people don’t have to list their nationality when applying for a tallinja card.

So, in effect, when a person hops on a bus or ferry and taps their tallinja card on the electronic reader, authorities are unable to see whether they are Maltese or not.

Which, in turn, means that they are unable to tally up how many of Malta's bus and ferry trips were made by Maltese nationals compared to non-Maltese.

Times of Malta had initially asked for these figures late last year, only to be told by a Transport Malta spokesperson that “data regarding users’ nationality is not recorded, as there is no distinction between nationalities when applying for a card”.

Transport authorities this week confirmed that this is still the case and that they are effectively unable to tell how many of the 56m trips carried out between January and September this year were carried out by Maltese citizens and how many by non-Maltese residents.

Authorities say they don't know how many of Malta's bus users are Maltese. File photo

Nevertheless, this year is shaping up to be the strongest on record for the total number of public transit passenger trips.

A little over 56.2m passenger trips were carried out in the first nine months of this year, with this figure on track to top last year’s total of 67.2m.

And this year’s numbers are already in line with 2019’s total of 57.4m.

But, ultimately, how many of these trips were made by Maltese citizens is anybody’s guess.

Verdict

Malta is not the only country to offer free public transport, with Luxembourg having adopted a similar measure two years earlier.

Several other cities across Europe have also adopted similar schemes, but Malta and Luxembourg remain the only two countries in Europe to offer free transit throughout all its borders.

Transport authorities say they are unable to tell how many public transport users are Maltese and how many are foreign because people don’t need to list nationality when applying for a tallinja card.

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