Record 208,027 commute by public transport in one day

Malta Public Transport registered an absolute daily record on Friday 21 April when its buses carried more than 208,000 passengers.

The company said this represents an increase of 4,500 passengers when compared to the previous record registered on Friday 4 October 2019.

MPT is a subsidiary of Autobuses de Leon and operates the Malta bus network. Since last October passengers with a Tal-Linja card started travelling for free with the government fully subsidising the service.

MPT said 5.4 million passengers travelled by bus during April this year, which is at par with the previous month. When compared to April 2022 and 2019, this translates to an increase of 41.4% and 13% respectively.

Over 4.2 million passengers used their Tallinja Card to travel last month, which represents an increase of 31.7% compared to 2019. The company saw around 6,000 new Tallinja Card registrations.

“During April, we carried the highest number of bus passengers in one day, since the beginning of our operation,” Konrad Pulé, the General Manager of Malta Public Transport said. “While this record number of bus passengers is a positive sign, we believe that we can attract even more passengers by implementing measures that will make public transport journey times shorter and more attractive. We look forward to continued discussions with the various stakeholders in this regard.”

To cater for the growing passenger demand, following discussions with the authorities, plans are underway to increase the frequency on a number of the busiest routes in the coming weeks.