Malta’s roads have seen an increase of more than 74,000 private cars in a 13-year span during which the road network has remained largely unchanged.

There were 275,539 licensed private cars and motorbikes on the road by the end of 2014, an increase of 37 per cent over 2001 levels, official figures show.

Times of Malta analysed the figures for private family cars and motorbikes, which form the bulk of the vehicle fleet.

The exercise excluded commercial vehicles, leased and chauffeur-driven private cars and any other vehicle category such as buses, minivans and tractors.

Motorists held back from buying until government changed the registration tax system

The period under review coincided with a spate of road upgrades that saw major thoroughfares redone to European standards.

But no new roads were built and key arterial junctions remained untouched, bar the link road in Marsa between December 13 Road and the Valletta waterfront, causing traffic gridlock at peak hours and beyond.

Figures show that private car sales were constantly on the rise except for three blips (marked on the graph at right), when the number of new licensed vehicles briefly slowed.

Rush hour traffic. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

The first slowdown coincided with Malta’s EU membership, when consumers had high expectations that membership could help push down vehicle prices in Malta. This did not happen since the registration tax falls within the remit of member states. The next blip occurred in 2008, when questions were being raised as to the legality of charging VAT on top of the car registration tax.

This coincided with the Labour Party’s campaign that led to a class action suit against the government over the matter.

Prospective motorists held back from buying cars until the government changed the registration tax system in 2009.

The third slowdown happened in 2012, a year characterised by political uncertainty as the government’s one-seat majority came under constant pressure.

But the slowdowns hardly had an impact on the ever-increasing private car population.

Traffic is also a major source of air pollution.

The figures showed more than two-thirds of private cars at the end of last year had petrol engines.

There were also 445 cars that had combined engines, running on petrol and liquefied petroleum gas or diesel and LPG.

Another 351 cars had hybrid petrol-electricity engines while only 87 electric cars zapped around the roads.

From the newly licensed cars last year, 6,451 were new passenger cars while almost 9,000 were second-hand.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com