Public transport users increased by more than a third after the bus service was made free in late 2022, according to Transport Malta figures, but authorities still face an uphill struggle in convincing commuters to ditch their cars.
Data provided by Transport Malta shows that there were 265,378 public transport users in the 12 months after October 2022, when the service became free for all users with a personalised Tallinja card.
This was some 35% higher than during the previous 12 months, when bus usage had started to climb back up after numbers dwindled during the pandemic.
This was also higher than any point during the previous five years, when traffic peaked at a little over 229,000 users between October 2018 and September 2019.
These figures don’t include tourists, who typically travel using different types of travel cards.
The government has spent some €32m, roughly €2m each month, to subsidise the bus service ever since it became free. This has raised questions over whether this investment was justified, with Malta’s traffic woes showing little signs of easing.
Regular users up, occasional users down
The number of passengers who use the bus frequently also appears to be inching upwards.
While in previous years roughly half of all passengers only used the service sporadically, fewer than 50 times in an entire year, this has now dipped slightly to 44% of users.
On the other hand, almost a third of all bus users (31%) use the service regularly, making over 200 trips in a year, and 44% of all users made at least 100 trips. In previous years, this figure usually stood at under 40%.
In total, almost 82,000 bus users used the bus over 200 times in the 12 months after the service became free in October 2022. This was almost 30,000 more than the previous 12 months and 20,000 more than the previous five-year high in 2018-19.
However, the number of occasional users – those who made fewer than 50 trips all year – also shot up from a little under 108,000 in 2018-19, to almost 116,500 last year.
The increase in bus users can be partly seen as a reflection of Malta’s growing population, with some 50,000 more people living in the country today than there were at the end of 2018.
Meanwhile, transport authorities have been trying to encourage more people to sign up for a Tallinja card, with a recent drive adding 10,000 new registrations this year.
More working-age people using public transport
Working-age people between the ages of 19 and 65 now make up a 71% share of all registered public transport users. This figure has grown year-on-year since 2018, suggesting that there is a gradual increase in the share of people using the bus for their commute.
Again, this needs to be understood within the context of Malta’s broader demographic change. Malta’s most recent census, carried out in 2021, found that the number of working-age people across the island has increased over the past decade, mostly thanks to the arrival of foreign nationals who were predominantly of working age.
Meanwhile, the share of older adults, over the age of 65, who use public transport has dipped under 20% for the first time in the past five years, now standing at 19%.
Meanwhile, a further one in ten registered bus users is under the age of 18, a similar figure to most previous years.
However, free use of buses had already been a reality for some of these users. Free bus travel for people between the ages of 14 and 20, as well as students over the age of 21 came into effect in 2019.
43 new cars on the road each day
These figures, while encouraging, have done little to stem the flow of new cars on the road.
Official data published late last year found that there are a total of 436,000 cars on Malta’s roads, with a net average increase of 43 new cars on the road each day.
Transport authorities have been reluctant to penalise car use, with then-Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia last year arguing that penalties would impose an excessive financial burden on people.
Experts however argue that measures disincentivising personal car use must go hand in hand with investment in public transport to encourage a modal shift towards alternative modes of transport.