I wouldn’t like to beat around the bush and therefore I go straight to the point about the reason I’m putting pen to paper. I was dismayed to read about the reported reluctance to accept a ‘€3,000 a day rental fee’ for a fourth ferry to assist the Gozo Channel in the onslaught of summer travellers during the three-month peak season which is around the corner. A short-term measure if ever there was one.

The Gozo ferries were brilliantly custom-built in the late 1990s and all of them now are almost 20 years old. Maritime experts clearly state that the lifetime of such ferries is in the region of 25 to 30 years.

And how right they are.

As one can notice even from a distance, the number of problems with the ferries are becoming the rule of the day.

The need to get the ferries serviced and therefore rendering themselves ‘out of service’ is getting more frequent. I assume the maintenance costs are experiencing a similar growth. The number of times the ramps are getting faulty and needing urgent repair and therefore, again, putting a ferry out of service is also a regular happening.

I can assure readers that more than 90 per cent of these disruptive incidents do not even make it to the media. And we Gozitans have to suffer in silence as we’ve been doing all these years.

Therefore, we regular channel commuters, apart from having to contend with the ferry schedule and weather conditions that can change our day or week, now have a new factor of the unpredictability – whether the ferry is in working order or not. This is not including the stark increase in regular commuters, which is making commuting an ever-increasing ordeal. 

With these challenges looming, the need of help for the current Gozo Channel fleet is quite obvious. Thus, the fact that the company is considering the leasing of a ferry especially for the imminent exponential rise in demand for the summer months, albeit obvious, came as good news.

Building a custom-made ferry is a far too lengthy a process to endure.

The other challenge would be where to berth the fourth ferry as definitely there’s barely space for the fast ferry service in Mġarr, let alone another ferry. Ċirkewwa harbour is not an all-weather port and can never be a secure all-year berth for a ferry. So, the leased fourth ferry will have to be berthed anywhere but not in Mġarr or Ċirkewwa.

The fast ferry service will only affect a small niche of commuters

The initiation of the fast ferry service has found a hitch and will definitely not be of any help to commuters at least in the next few months, even though I have serious doubts how far it will go to alleviate the burden on the Gozo Channel and the troubles faced by commuters.

In my opinion it will only affect a small niche of commuters, which, if their travelling requirements are not properly addressed in their entirety, may also dwindle with time.

However, a system that is quite elementary to implement is the system of booking one’s place on the ferry. Rough estimates indicate that such a simple, easy to implement measure, will increase Gozo Channel efficiency by up to 27 per cent and eliminating up to 50 per cent of traffic built-up on both sides of the channel.

I’ve been harping on these lines for years now but have always fallen on deaf ears.

Commuters do not have an issue with the 25-minute ferry crossing but they do have an issue with the waiting for an hour or more in Mġarr or Ċirkewwa.

This may not be a problem for tourists but it is for regular commuters. Such unpredictability should not feature in one’s daily schedule.

If simple booking is implemented as it is all over the world for any travelling mode be it airplane, ferry, train or even taxi, then a regular commuter could cut the waiting time. If implemented initially as a percentage of the ferry being pre-booked and the rest on a ‘first come first served basis’, in time the demand for the latter will dwindle.

Gozo Channel will also benefit.

Current demand for crossings is not stable, it comes in peaks and troughs, never a good commercial model. The booking system will allow for greater spread of activity over an increased number of hours. It will allow Gozo Channel to plan for demand, and channel it, as it flows in. Also a pre-booking system would provide Gozo Channel access to invaluable data that will push the company into the 21st century.

Unfortunately in the scenario of a monopoly of service, there is little business interest in implementing anything “innovative” and companies/entities tend to adopt the take it or leave it approach.

Accessibility was and is always the main issue with Gozo’s development and for people living on this island.

Therefore, in the scenario of having a booming economy and ever-increasing surplus, finding half a million euros to alleviate the extra burden summer brings us Gozitans, is hard to believe.

After all, this is only the cost of remodelling and making a sizeable roundabout.

Franco Mercieca is a former parliamentary secretary for active ageing and disability rights.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.