Free public transport in Malta has unofficially started on Thursday afternoon, as card readers on buses no longer charge Tallinja cards.
Free public transport unofficially started Thursday afternoon
Free public transport in Malta has unofficially started on Thursday afternoon, as card readers on buses no longer charge Tallinja cards.
Instead of the usual fare, displays of the on-board card readers now show ‘Validat. OK’, whilst the Tallinja app shows €0.00 transactions in ‘last movements’.
Technical glitch or soft launch?
Malta Public Transport has not given any official comment on the early start of free public transport for Tallinja Card holders.
However, reliable company sources told Bonġu that a soft-launch has started on Thursday afternoon in order to establish “whether the system change is working smoothly”.
This came after week-long software testing, during which Tallinja cards of students and pensioners were already not being charged for their bus rides.
The officially communicated launch of free bus trips for everyone with a personalised Tallinja card is Saturday 1 October 2022.
Just minutes before this article was published, Tallinja issued another newsletter with useful details about the free public transport scheme.
In fact, thousands of commuters have already benefitted of the unofficial, early start of the new scheme on Thursday.
