Almost 50 million passengers travelled by bus in 2022

Malta Public Transport carried 49.6 million passengers in 2022, which is an increase of 40% when compared to 2021. In December 2022, the number of passengers travelling by bus surpassed pre-pandemic numbers for the first time.

“We are pleased to reach this significant milestone by surpassing our record numbers of 2019 for the first time in December,” said Konrad Pulé, General Manager of Malta Public Transport. “The constant growth in numbers over the past few months is very encouraging and is a clear sign that the confidence and demand for public transport is once again increasing.”

Since the launch of the free public transport initiative in October, there were almost 50% more tallinja card passengers when compared to the same period in 2021. This is also 8% more than 2019, which was a record year, which means that the free public transport initiative is succeeding in incentivising even more people to make use of public transport.

This trend was also reflected on New Year’s Eve, when the company carried twice the amount of people on its night services when compared to 2019. Night services, along with day routes and special services, are also included in the free public transport scheme for all tallinja card holders.

“We would like to thank all our passengers, who are choosing to travel in a sustainable manner. We would also like to thank all our employees as this success would have not been possible without their dedication and commitment throughout the year”, explained Mr Pulé. “These results encourage us to continue working hard to improve our bus service. We have gathered extensive feedback through customer research, and we are currently discussing various improvements to the route network with different stakeholders in this regard.”

Malta Public Transport is investing in an additional 25 new electric buses, which will be put in service in the coming weeks in order to increase the frequencies of the bus services.