Localities along the Eastern coast from Cirkewwa down to Sliema attract the highest number of commuters in the Maltese Island with route 48 alone carrying 2.6 million passengers in 2023.

This striking statistic emerged from recently-published data by the National Statistics Office through a new portal which is exclusively dedicated to transport. It transpires that the decision to make the bus service free of charge for all Tal-linja Card Holders was a game changer as patronage rose from 49.2 million passengers in 2022 to 67.2 million the following year.

Malta Public Trasport which operates the bus service runs 117 routes, of which 15 in Gozo, through a network comprising 2,050 bus stops.  

The statistics reveals that the population growth registered in the last decade has heavily impacted the bus service, with the largest locality – St Paul’s Bay with a population which these days has reached 50,000 when counting in tourists – topping the list of patronage levels.

As a matter of fact route 48 which runs from Valletta to Bugibba bus terminus tops the overall list with 2.6 million commuters, while route 31 which also serves Bugibba from Valletta albeit through Mosta carried 1.98 million passengers and ranked fourth overall.

The second most popular routes were 13A and 13 which link the capital to Malta’s entertainment hub at St Julian’s and Bahar ic-Caghaq respectively. These two routes carried 4.1 million passengers in 2023.

The two main routes service Cirkewwa 41, and 42, also proved to be very popular carrying a combined 3.9 million passengers. The service is mainly used by commuters heading to St Paul’s Bay, Mellieha or those catching the Gozo ferry.  

The NSO data also reveals those routes which carried the lowest number of passengers with the last place occupied by route 150 linking the Gozo Fast Ferry in Lascaris Valletta to MCAST in Paola, with just 9 trips daily from Monday to Friday. The total number of commuters carried by this route was 5,500 for an entire year. The second least popular route was 130 which operates in circular fashion between the Valletta terminus and the Valletta Waterfront. Just 7,528 commuters made use of this service. Third from bottom is route 109A linking Siggiewi to Bahrija with the annual number of commuters of just 22,535 followed by route 330 in Gozo which is one of two serving Xlendi with 27,956 passengers.

Despite these numbers, the service is still struggling to cope with demand especially in hotpots like the Kennedy Grove bus stop in St Paul’s Bay, Bieb il-Bombi in Floriana and in Msida. While the operator has beefed up the service, the response is yet to cater for the huge increase in population which has resulted in certain areas being left short of the capacity they required especially during the morning and afternoon rush hours.