GWU president Victor Carachi has called on private schools to make children’s transport more affordable to ease traffic congestion during the morning rush hour.

“If necessary, this should be one of the conditions in the licence issued by the government,” he said.

Commenting in the wake of his new year message urging the government to take “courageous” decisions to address this controversial issue, Mr Carachi said: “The government and the Opposition, together with social partners, should join forces to draft a long-term strategy to reduce traffic as well as emissions.”

However, the solutions did not necessarily need to be as drastic as imposing vehicle congestion tax, he added. A first step could be to ensure parents sending their children to private, independent and Church schools would have a realistic and affordable option to use school transport. “This should not imply that the government has to foot the entire bill as these schools need to do their part to address the problem,” he added.

If necessary, this should be one of the conditions in the licence issued by the government

Mr Carachi also suggested a ban on heavy vehicles during the morning rush hour up to 9am. Though such a measure was mentioned in last year’s Budget, it was never implemented.

He called on the government to carry out works at night to minimise traffic disruptions, especially on arterial roads.

In the long term, the aim should be to reduce emissions as these had a direct impact on the quality of life. “Apart from incentives to introduce electric cars, measures should be taken to convert the fleet of buses to a cleaner form of fuel over a number of years,” he said.

Mr Carachi also questioned the authorities’ commitment to tackling certain abuses, saying the emission alert campaign rolled out some years ago by Transport Malta had lost momentum and was no longer being promoted.