As from tomorrow morning, drivers needing to enter Valletta will no longer be required to sport a “V” licence on their windshields and will instead be charged only if their vehicles spend more than 30 minutes parked in the capital.

A new hi-tech Controlled Vehicular Access (CVA) system, which goes online this morning, supplants the decades-old system by which drivers paid for the special “V” licence to enter Valletta.

Speaking to The Malta Independent yesterday, Anthony Mamo from CVA explained that testing of the new system has been ongoing for the last month with the result that “the system is perfectly in line with what we had expected in terms of accuracy and other important criteria.”

He added that although the system went live at midnight last night, no bills will be issued due to today’s public holiday, since the new system exempts Sundays and public holidays from billing.

With the tender for the design, development and installation of the new system having been issued one year ago, Mr Mamo commented, “It has been pretty much one year of solid work in setting up the system.”

With today being exempt from billing, as from tomorrow morning, all drivers will be able to park in Valletta free of charge for half an hour, after which they will be charged 35c for the next 30 minutes and 35c per hour thereafter. The parking charges will be capped at Lm2.80.

Parking on Sundays and public holidays will be free of charge, and the new parking rates will be applicable from Mondays to Fridays between 8am and 6pm, and on Saturdays between 8am and 1pm.

Electric cars, motorcycles, public transport vehicles and cars carrying 10 or more people will be exempted from the payment scheme.

The Valletta ring road, meanwhile, will also be exempted from the new scheme. Those still holding valid “V” licences, of which some 30,000 are in issue, are to be compensated through a pro rata refund of Lm1.66 per month. The roundabout in front of Castille will also be a “free zone”.

The new system is expected to complement other accessibility strategies being developed for the automobile-saturated World Heritage city. These include the Park and Ride system, the 198 Valletta circular bus route, both already in operation, and the planned multifaceted Valletta Vertical Connections project and the introduction of electric taxis.

The hi-tech system coming online today will be using Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology and will photograph vehicles entering and leaving the city. On that basis, the system will calculate the length of stay in Valletta and bill the registered owner of the vehicle accordingly.

To this end, cameras have been put up at nine entry and six exit points around Valletta, specially designed to bear the brunt of Malta’s hot summer temperatures and humidity.

Bills of over Lm5 will be issued on a monthly basis, while lower bills will be issued on a quarterly basis. Vehicle owners will be able to pay their bills by cheque, direct debit, at the Valletta local council, at CVA’s offices or online at the CVA website – www.cva.gov.mt – where motorists will also be able to check their bills and access other information.

If the bill is not settled within one month, a two per cent interest rate will be applied, which will increase by a further two per cent if not paid within the second month. If by the third month the bill has not yet been settled, it will increase by 100 per cent.

A number of other exemptions to parking fees have also been introduced and include those for residents and relatives of residents, who will be given an annual permit to be applied for at the Valletta local council. Garage owners are also exempted as long as cars are parked inside the garages. Market hawkers are exempt 90 minutes before the monti (open market) opens and 90 minutes after it closes. The President, the Archbishop, the Prime Minister, ministers and parliamentary secretaries are also among those exempted from the scheme. The government’s fleet of vehicles, however, will not be exempted from the system.

Parking bays in several Valletta streets have been painted blue and green. The blue bays are reserved for residents between 7pm and 7am the following morning, although residents will not be expected to climb out of bed early in order to remove their cars by 7am. However, an empty blue parking bay can be used by any car entering Valletta between 7am and 7pm. There are 400 blue parking bays.

The green parking bays are reserved all day for those residents of the roads which are being pedestrianised. There are 100 green parking bays.

Moreover, the current reserved parking spaces – around 150 in all – will be abolished.

The car park attendants will be relocated and none of them will be operating from within the CVA zone.