As students return to the University of Malta on Monday, adding to the traffic woes of already-frustrated commuters, some are taking matters into their own hands – and others into their cars – in an effort to ease the burden.
On Carpool Malta, a new Facebook group created by fifth-year medical student Matthew Vella, members post their journeys to and from campus and beyond, offering lifts to anyone making a similar trip at the same time.
The group has attracted some 2,500 members in the month since it was set up, nearly half joining this week alone, and currently sees around 30 posts a day from people seeking a spot in a car or offering one in theirs.
“The only way to address the terrible traffic situation is to remove a large number of private cars from the road. There's no point complaining about the traffic when you're just another person alone in a private car,” Mr Vella told the Times of Malta.
“In time, if there is less traffic on the road and buses are more efficient as a result, maybe carpooling won’t be needed. But until then, everything will remain the same unless people make small sacrifices. We need a total mentality change.”
We need a total mentality change
While most Carpool Malta members so far are students and young people, the group allows people to arrange lifts between any two points on the island, and members can add journeys they make every day to an updated list to help others find them more easily.
The new initiative is not the first to attempt to foster a ride-sharing mentality among students and the broader population.
Carpooling platform Bum-a-Lift has offered a similar service for the past four years through a website and app, although the team said in April they had halted efforts to market the platform on a national level as the novelty wore off and fewer people used the service.
Carpool Malta creator Mr Vella believes the accessibility of Facebook groups over dedicated apps could help his new initiative thrive, pointing to the reach of groups like Is-Salott (which has some 42,000 members).
He added that while carpooling among friends had always been popular, people were more apprehensive about the idea of sharing their car with a stranger, a reluctance he hoped the platform could slowly start to change.
“No single solution is going to solve the problem,” Mr Vella said, pointing to the need for better public transport, cycling infrastructure and other larger changes. “But we can’t just keep making excuses not to start using alternatives right now.”