Allocate funds in Budget 2027 to a shared cab initiative, let’s fix traffic now.

Momentum is calling for Budget 2027 to prioritise immediate transport solutions over disruptive megaprojects that will take decades to deliver.

At the heart of our proposal is a Subsidised Shared Cab Initiative: a government-backed platform where taking a cab costs significantly less when shared with passengers travelling along the same route. Under this scheme, the government would provide a yearly subsidy for the first two years, locking in low prices that do not surge at peak times during the day across 60 million passenger trips a year. A further investment would support upgrading existing cab platforms to connect to a centralised AI-driven shared-ride algorithm, while young people aged 15 to 24 and those aged 65 and over would pay a flat fare of €2 to encourage youth and elderly uptake and drastically decrease the number of cars on the road.

The initiative will cover its own cost to the country. The subsidy would cost €234 million, which is offset by €50 million in time savings, €42 million in fuel savings and €220 million less spent on imported vehicles, leaving a net national benefit of €78 million every year.

Momentum General Secretary, Mark Camilleri Gambin, stated: “Over the past months, together with Ing. Marco Cremona, we have met with key government and opposition representatives and decision makers. We know that this idea is a welcome one. The Malta in Motion plan factors in cabs as part of the solution. We believe that the SHARED element of any cab initiative is key to drastically reduce the impact of cars on the road. The true power of this scheme lies in its immediate effect and the fact that it requires no heavy capital investment, unlike the pie in the sky ideas about mass transport solutions that would cost many billions to implement and take decades. This proposal can be piloted with all the existing infrastructure in a matter of months.”

Alongside the shared cab scheme, Momentum proposes investing €150 million in 300 new buses running on high-frequency direct routes, €100 million to upgrade 2,000 bus stops, €100 million to create safe and walkable pavements, €20 million to expand the bus lane network and €2.1 million for accurate real-time transit information.

“Every day, people across Malta and Gozo lose hours of their lives stuck in traffic. Frequent bus users know how overcrowded the network gets, especially at the country’s main interchanges. 

In reality, people are currently working a 6-day working week: 5 days at work and 1 day a week stuck in traffic.

“This problem cannot afford to wait decades for a metro that may never be built. We already have the roads, the cabs and the technology to fix this today; what has been missing until now is the political will to act. In the spirit of finding a cross-party solution to this national problem, we encourage the government to allocate some budget for solutions around shared cabs,” concluded Camilleri Gambin.

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