Traffic Congestion Costs Malta €1.13 Billion A Year, Engineer Calculates

Traffic congestion is costing Malta an estimated €1.13 billion every year, according to calculations presented by Maltese engineer Marco Cremona. Speaking during a transport presentation organised by Momentum, Cremona said the figure is based on the combined cost of time lost in traffic and fuel consumption by private passenger cars as reported by Malta Today . “The private car is not the problem. The problem is the number of cars,” he said. According to Cremona’s calculations, Malta has around 400,000 commuters using private cars and making an average of four trips per day. With each trip lasting roughly 25 minutes, he estimates that 25% of travel time is lost to congestion. Using a value of €10 per hour for lost time, this amounts to approximately 60.8 million hours lost annually, equivalent to around 166,667 hours every day. For individual commuters, that translates to roughly 152 hours per year spent in traffic. Based on these figures, Cremona estimates that every minute of traffic congestion costs Malta around €67,000. The second part of the calculation focuses on fuel consumption. Using average trip lengths, vehicle fuel efficiency and Malta’s subsidised fuel prices, he estimates that passenger cars consume around €518 million worth of fuel annually. Combined, the value of lost time and fuel expenditure reaches €1.13 billion per year. Cremona noted that the calculation does not include several additional costs linked to traffic and car dependency, including parking time, land used for roads and parking infrastructure, environmental impacts, public health effects, delays to emergency services and road maintenance expenditure. He estimates that roads, garages and parking spaces associated with private vehicles occupy land equivalent to around 823 football pitches. According to data cited during the presentation, Malta has the highest traffic congestion rate in Europe and ranks among the most congested countries globally. The country also has one of Europe’s highest car ownership rates, with approximately 797 vehicles per 1,000 residents. National Statistics Office figures show that Malta had 457,403 licensed motor vehicles at the end of 2025, with passenger cars accounting for 73.4% of the total. Cremona’s study is among the first attempts to combine both lost productivity and fuel consumption into a single estimate of the economic impact of traffic congestion in Malta. How much time do you think you spend stuck in traffic every week? •