Malta Chamber Calls for Traffic Reform With 10-Point Plan

The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry on Wednesday 15 July 2026 called for fundamental reform of traffic and mobility management, saying it has submitted concrete proposals throughout the last legislature via press releases, consultation documents, pre-Budget submissions, pre-election submissions and sector-specific proposals, yet few have been meaningfully adopted. The Chamber described congestion as "a drag on national productivity, a daily cost to businesses, a burden on workers" and "a serious obstacle to Malta's competitiveness."

Delayed deliveries, missed appointments, reduced efficiency, higher operating costs and lower quality of life for workers follow from a structural traffic problem that the Chamber said demands bold decisions and immediate action. The Chamber argued that disincentives must accompany positive incentives if private car dependency is to fall. "A real shift in behaviour will not happen through incentives and positive reinforcement alone," the statement read.

"If the objective is to reduce private car dependency, disincentives must also form part of the policy mix." To operationalise that principle, the Chamber suggested e-wallet programmes for mobility financed by revenue from city parking charges and congestion fees. It also called for an AI-driven system allowing local councils to process road-closure and permit requests, linked to a public-facing platform providing residents and businesses advance visibility of disruptions.

An internal government coordination system already exists; the Chamber said it currently lacks real-time public information updates. The statement criticised Malta's continued use of personnel to manually manage roundabouts and congestion points, arguing that intelligent traffic-light systems and smarter data tools should replace that approach. The Chamber proposed rolling out smart parking information systems in congestion-prone areas, reforming school transport through geographic route pooling and supervised walking initiatives and introducing smart logistics solutions in commercial zones, including loading-bay management, delivery-slot booking and enforcement tools.

It also proposed leveraging private-sector partnerships to move surface parking underground or into multi-storey structures and developing logistics consolidation hubs, where evidence supports them, to reduce duplicate freight trips. The Chamber proposed tying government spending on transport and infrastructure to measurable mobility results independently verified, rather than to stated plans alone — captured in the phrase "money follows results, not promises."

It warned that without decisive action, Malta risks entrenching inefficiency and weakening competitiveness.