An online carpooling network would encourage university students to share lifts to and from campus, the University Student Council said yesterday.
KSU president Gayle Lynn Callus said the carpooling organiser had been devised to reduce the number of vehicles hunting for parking spots in and around the Msida campus.
Uploaded on the KSU website this week, the organiser allows students to choose a single or return journey from any locality on the island. It then maps out the trip using Google Maps and provides a pick-up and drop-off time. The application even allows drivers and hitchhikers to sort their fellow poolers by gender.
The organiser forms part of a series of initiatives announced by the KSU to ease traffic around campus. The projects are being financed by a €10,000 fund provided by Malta Public Transport.
Mr Callus said the majority of funds would be spent on providing a 50 per cent discount on three-month bus ticket bundles. These will cost students 33c every day for the bulk of next semester and are available from the KSU website.
Interestingly, a Eurobarometer study published yesterday (see box above) reveals that the Maltese are the least likely, at just nine per cent, to switch over to public transport due to a price cut.
Just a third of university students use public transport to get to campus, with 97 per cent saying they would use it more often if it were more reliable. About three-quarters of students drive their own car to university every day. Just two per cent use a bicycle.
Mr Callus said the KSU was committed to increasing the number of cyclists.
To this aim, it was offering a 20 per cent discount on bikes purchased from Pedal Power in Birkirkara. Students who would like to try out cycling to campus before investing in their own set of wheels can rent a bike from the KSU offices.
Mr Callus acknowledged that many of the routes to the university were far from ideal for cycling but hoped students would make the effort regardless.
He said many solutions were available beyond the availability of more parking spots as this would simply mask the problem rather than solve it.
Among such solutions was driving to university and parking in a neighbouring locality and then walking the last part of the journey. Some 1,200 students lived in the vicinity of the campus and the majority faced less than a 30-minute walk.
This, Mr Callus added, did not include a large number of Gozitan students who rented apartments close by.
Car love affair
Maltese are the third most likely to drive their own car to work, according to an EU-wide study.
Data released by Eurobarometer yesterday showed that 70 per cent of Maltese drove their cars to work, nearly 20 per cent higher than the EU average. In fact, the Irish and the Cypriots were the only citizens more dependent on their private vehicles than the Maltese.
About 21 per cent of Maltese used public transport, slightly above the EU average of 19 per cent.
When it came to walking, the Maltese were the third least likely to get around on foot, surpassed in their non-walking ways by the Dutch and Luxembourgers.