Within the framework of the National Transport Strategy for Malta 2050, a comprehensive and in-depth investigation of transport sector of the Islands of Malta and Gozo is carried out. A set of analytical activities is undertaken, with the aim of developing a full understanding of the existing transport sector, that is deemed to be a complex multi-fold issue, intertwined with both physical and socio-economic variables.
The diagnosis of Maltese transportation comprises of the production of a series of unprecedented GIS-based detailed maps. For the first time, the provision of Maltese multimodal transport network, in terms of infrastructure and supply, is surveyed and thoroughly analysed in collaboration with Transport Malta, the responsible local Authority of the sector.
More than a hundred maps are produced to show land, air and maritime transport supply infrastructure, revealing several of its main features: road network hierarchy, geometry and maintenance status; road capacity; bridges and tunnels infrastructure; parking facilities provision; engineering devices (traffic lights and speed cameras) provision; public transport infrastructure and facilities supply; main and secondary multi-modal transport hubs; soft mobility supply, and; catchment areas.
The survey does not consider Maltese transport merely in its hard components (infrastructure and facilities) but it also includes its soft components, with a focus on the usage that Maltese people and tourists make of the available network as well as to the variegated range of transport network users. Within this framework, census data, informing about demographics and economics, and land-use data are studied and mapped to compose the territorial base of transport infrastructure. Mobility flows are then disaggregated according to user categories and journey purposes and finally, main and secondary commuters journey patterns are observed, quantified and localised.
The impressive amount of ad hoc produced maps results innovative for two main reasons, ascribable to its two-fold character, both descriptive and analytical. On the one hand, the survey provides local Authority with an original and comprehensive descriptive tool that accurately depicts the state of the art of Maltese transportation, which results have informed the eGis STREETS Project recently published online by Transport Malta. On the other hand, the set of maps represents a strategic and a scientific-based tool of analysis, capable to: unveil the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Maltese transportation; inform all modelling processes and; address future planning decisions.
The National Transport Strategy for Malta 2050 was recently approved and selected by the EU among the portfolio of European Best Practices. The Strategy includes several initiatives for further developments, which proposition is deeply rooted in the findings resulting from the survey campaigns undertaken, anchored into a simple credo: by analysing what you currently see, you can plan for the future.