Tallinja card users will be given an additional €10 when they topped their card with €10 in a bid to ease back-to-school traffic, Transport Minister Joe Mizzi said this afternoon.

Mr Mizzi said the campaign would see 120,000 cards benefit from this one-time offer which will continue until the end of October or when funds run out.

The campaign, which is expected to cost some €1.2 million, is being funded by Transport Malta’s EU funded Modus initiative.

Mr Mizzi said the campaign started today and would work in tandem with other efforts aimed to ease congestion.

“We are introducing new routes and setting up new priority lanes. We have listened to the public and the improvements are already noticeable,” he said.

Asked how many people were still experiencing problems with their cards, Mr Mizzi said the figure was less than one per cent of those who had signed up. He would not give a precise or even rough figure.

Transport authorities are expecting the number of public transport users to increase by eight per cent as a result of initiatives being taken.

EU funds Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg, said the government had more financing to tap and so the public could expect more initiatives before the end of the year.

The press conference was cut short after Mr Mizzi declined to answer questions put by Net News, insisting he did not want them to misinterpret his replies. He said he would answer any questions sent by the Opposition’s news arm in writing.