Freeport’s Future is Green

& Sons Ltd with The Gleneagles, with users paying a small fee for the service. The Gleneagles gave service between the two islands as well as a weekly trip to Sicily until 1914.

As opposed to today, at the time, there was another operator providing concurrent transport services for both the transport of mail and passengers, which was offered by the Malta Steamship Company using the vessel The Princess Melita. From 1923 to 1937 this company operated two vessels, The Wembley, which sank in 1935, and The Golly, which was later sold in 1937.

These were followed by the Gozo Mail Service Company, which was a partnership between Joseph Gasan, Giovanni Dacoutros, the Grech family known as “Gelluxa”, and some ten other Gozitans with minority shareholding.

This company operated The Royal Lady between October 1938 and May 1942, and a sailing vessel, The Franco, between May 1942 and April 1948. Both vessels were bombed by the Germans during World War Two. The Royal Lady was sunk in 1942 and The Franco received damage in its funnel but luckily kept running till 1948.

Bernard Zammit, on the other hand, operated two vessels, The King of England and Lady Strickland, which were both withdrawn from service in 1951.

Between 1947 and 1950 Joseph Gasan operated The Calypso. Joseph Gasan also operated The Bancinu between 1950 and 1957, when it eventually ran aground and sank during a storm. During the same period Mr Gasan operated The Maid of Pinto, a wooden schooner which sank in 1951, and The Pinu which finished its service in 1957, the same year as The Bancinu.

The Magro family operated The Ħanini between 1948 and 1956. They also operated The Queen of Peace between 1956 and 1970. The Queen of Peace was sold by the Magro family in the seventies and was used to carry cargo to North Africa until it was lost in North African waters with the loss of some Maltese.

In 1964 the Malta Aliscafi Ltd started operating a hydrofoil service between Grand Harbour and Mġarr Harbour. The hydrofoil in use was called The Delfin. It was commonly known as l-Iżgiċċ. The company went bankrupt in 1968

Gozo Channel Co. Ltd came into being

It was about this time when E. Zammit & Co. undertook the passenger and car ferry services between the Maltese Islands, a tender which was won against stiff competition. This service continued to be run by E. Zammit & Co., with annual tenders being won up to 1979, when the Government of the time decided to set up the Gozo Channel Co. Limited to run the service as a parastatal company. The Group retained substantial shareholding in this company till the early 1990s.

The Zammit family operated The Jylland from 1967. Karistu Zammit also operated The Melitaland and The Calypsoland up to 1978, and he also had The Minor Eagle, which used to operate the Gozo service between 1966 and 1976. This was renamed The Cominoland in 1976 and The Jylland II in 1980. Gozo Channel (C 4314) was formed in 1979, to maintain, develop, and operate a sea transport service to and from Malta, Gozo and elsewhere.

The Company’s first vessels to operate the route were The M/V Għawdex (purchased in early 1979) The M/V Melitaland and The M/V Mġarr (exSalthorn), both purchased in early 1980. Initially, these vessels performed an average of eight round trips per day.

As the traffic between Malta and Gozo increased, more vessels were introduced into the service to keep up with the demand, and by 1990 the Company was operating five vessels, including a fast ferry service between Mġarr, Sliema and Sa Maison, and performing an average of 27 round trips per day. In that year, the Company carried 1.93 million passengers and 370,000 cars.

In 1995 there were four ferries: The Mġarr (exMarsdiep), The Ċittadella II (ex-Telstrom), The Calypso and The Għawdex.

Between 1996 and 2001, the Gozo Channel replaced the hovermarine service by a high speed catamaran service between Sa Maison and Mġarr Harbour using S.E.S. Victoria Express.

In the mid 90s, the Company embarked on a very ambitious programme – the modernisation of the fleet. Plans for the construction of three ro-ro vessels at the Malta Shipbuilding were finalised amid longer than expected timeframes and over-budgeting to be completed. The first vessel, The M.V. Ta’ Pinu, was introduced into service in March 2000, whilst the second ferry, The M.V. Gaudos entered into service in February 2001. The third vessel, The M.V. Malita, was delivered in March 2002. All vessels have state of the art technology.

The Mġarr ferry terminal was rebuilt at a cost of €9.3 million in the early 21st century. Work began in 2001 and took seven years to complete, with the terminal opening in February 2008. The Mġarr harbour now has facilities for around 600 passengers and 200

cars. The design of the new harbour was changed during the construction process to reduce its visual impact on the surrounding landscape.

The development of the Ċirkewwa ferry terminal, on the other hand, was completed in May 2013. It includes a passenger-handling building with gangway connections to the ships for foot passengers; vehicular marshalling areas; parking and land transport facilities; access and circulation roadways; additional berthing capacity; ancillary buildings and other general enhancements.

The Gozo Channel Company took over the management of the Ċirkewwa Terminal on 27th May 2013. The cost of the Ċirkewwa terminal was estimated at around €12,000,000, 85% of which was funded through the Cohesion Fund Cohesion Policy 2007 – 2013 Operational Programme I.

The following is a list of vessels operating the Gozo – Malta Ferry Services:

Fleet O.F. Gollcher Ltd:

Gleneagles (1885-1914)

Fleet G.P. Sammut & Co:

Princess Melita (1893 – 1923)

Fleet Francesco Pace:

Piemonte (1897-1901)

Fleet Malta Steamship Co Ltd:

Wembley (1923-1935) Golly (1932-1937)

Fleet Bernard Zammit:

Lady Strickland (1929 – 1951) King of England (1933 – 1951)

Fleet Joseph Gasan, Giovanni Dacoutros & Grech Family:

Franco (1936 -1948) Royal Lady (1937-1942) Anna (1942)

Fleet Joseph Gasan:

Calypso (1947-1950) Bancinu (1950-1957) Maid of Pinto (1950-1957) Pinu (1950-1957)

Fleet Magro Family:

Ħanini (1948-1956) Queen of Peace (1956-1970)

Fleet Magro & Zammit Families:

Imperial Eagle (1958-1968)

Fleet Malta Aliscafi Ltd:

Delfin (1964-1968)

Fleet E. Zammit & Sons Ltd:

Minor Eagle (1966-1978) Jylland (1967-1978) Calypsoland (1969-1978) Melitaland (1974-1978)

Former ferries Gozo Channel Co. Ltd.:

M/V Jylland (1967-1984) M/V Calypsoland (1969-1984) M/V Melitaland/ Bezz 20 (1974-1994, 1994-1996) M/V Minor Eagle/ Cominoland/ Jylland II (1976-1980) M/V Għawdex (1978-2000) M/V Mġarr (1979-1995) M/V Ċittadella/ Citta’ (1987-1995, 1995-1997) M/V SES Calypso (1988-1996) M/V Xlendi (1990-1999) M/V Mġarr (1995-2002) M/V Ċittadella (1995-2002) M/V SES Victoria Express (1996-2002) M/V Calypso (1993-2004)

Fleet Gozo Channel Co. Ltd.:

M/V Ta’ Pinu (2000-) M/V Gaudos (2002-) M/V Malita (2002-)

*The historical insight for this article was provided by Gozo Channel.

The National Household Travel Survey Published

The National Statistics Office, in collaboration with Transport Malta (TM), launched the fourth National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) in November 2021, with results published this year. This is the first time that NHTS results were calibrated and grossed up to corresponding population levels residing in private households, using data from the preliminary results of the Census of Population and Housing 2021.

This NHTS was carried out during the last quarter of 2021 and targeted a random sample of private households in Malta and Gozo. Travel patterns of all sampled household members over the age of 14 years were recorded. As anticipated, the collection of data required extensive cooperation between TM and responding households. The main objective of this survey was to have indications of travel patterns as well as modes of transport used in order to guide better future transport policies and strategies, including the update of the National Transport Strategy and Master Plan, which will be carried out on an updated National Transport Model.

The transport model will be used to assess and quantify current and future potential transport policies and measures in terms of their collective impacts on traffic congestion, modal shift, climate change and air quality by the year 2030.

This survey is the fourth one held in Malta, with the first edition carried out in 1989, followed by another in 1998 and a third one in 2010.

It was decided that the survey would be carried out on one particular travel day, that is Wednesday 17th November 2021, wherein travel habits would not be influenced by extraordinary or planned events. Participating households were selected across all localities in Malta and Gozo in order to achieve an acceptable level of statistical significance for each of the 68 localities across the Maltese Islands. A sample of 6,700 was selected.

A Project Coordination Committee was set up among representatives of Transport Malta, the National Statistics Office, and consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers. The committee was chaired by David Sutton, Chief Officer of the Integrated Transport Strategy Directorate at Transport Malta.

The core team was managed by a project manager who reported to the Coordination Committee. Around 70 staff members were involved in the process of the necessary disciplines and skills to carry out the survey.

NHTS21 was conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on behalf of Transport Malta (TM), and supported by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

https://nso.gov.mt/en/nso/Media/Salient-Points-ofPublications/Documents/2022/NHTS/National%20 Household%20Travel%20Survey%20Publication.pdf

Project Steering Committee

Project Steering and strategy

Project Manager

Survey project management

ICT Team

Web applications, development, database development and administration, data security

Statistical Analysis Team

Sampling methodology, response monitoring, date validation, results analysis

Marketing Team

Website design social media, advert design

Support Team

Pre-and-post - Travel Day telephone calls, helpline response, data input

Regulatory Team

Data protection and data privacy