As Transport Minister Austin Gatt observed yesterday when unveiling the details of the successful conclusion of negotiations for the country’s soon-to-be new-and-improved public transport system, the main challenge will be changing the prevailing culture where, he said, everyone wants to have their cars ‘outside the door’.

The new public transport system detailed yesterday should go a long way toward that goal. Much is said in today’s issue about the transport system that will hit the country’s roads in July so we won’t retread that path. Suffice it to say that the reform is radical as was promised but, as with all matters commercial, the market’s response is a fickle thing and much will remain to be seen.

If it is successful, which it most definitely will be at least in the first months due to at least the novelty factor, it could work wonders for the country’s pollution levels.

Transportation is the country’s second-largest polluter and within the transportation category, public transport is the largest polluter. As such, vehicle emissions are a leading source of air pollution and, in the same vein, a leading source of the deterioration of the country’s air quality.

The new public transportation fleet and its Euro V engines will provide for significant decreases in emissions of particulate matter (94 per cent lower than current levels), nitrogen oxides (70 per cent), carbon monoxide (55 per cent) and hydrocarbons (48 per cent).

The minister also hinted that the next step would be addressing pollution levels from other vehicles. Along these lines, there have been certain measures announced in the past that we have heard nothing about since. There were, many moons ago, plans to promote energy efficient driving practices. Not only do such practices save drivers money at the fuel pump, but, logically, the less fuel a car uses, the less exhaust, and pollution, it emits.

The initiatives, according to the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan, which aimed to foster an across the board three per cent energy consumption cut by the end of this year, include the provision of advisory services on energy saving measures, the dissemination of public information on eco-driving through driving schools, vehicle repairers, car retailers and at VRT test sites, and the development of an intelligent traffic management system.

In the meantime, the government was to also investigate whether petrol stations would be able to provide cost effective energy efficiency services such as compressed air for tyres, information and/or engine checks. Activities along such lines are, according to the plan, were to have begun in 2009.

But the public transport reform detailed yesterday aims to tackle the problem at its source – by attempting to create a culture that would see more cars being taken off the road in the first place.

Malta is not only the most densely populated country in the EU - it is also the most densely populated in terms of cars, with well over 300,000 for a population of just over 400,000 men, women and children.

But against that backdrop, a mere 12 per cent of the Maltese public transport at the moment as against the 50 per cent EU average.

It is, of course, little wonder that the Maltese percentage is so low. The state of the current fleet and the attitude of some, but not all, bus drivers toward customer service leave a lot to be desired.

The reform’s aim will be to combat the ever decreasing number of commuters opting for public transport, which has been halved over the last 30 years - from 59 million passengers using public transport in 1979 to just 30 million in 2009.

According to the National Household Travel Survey, just 15 per cent of commuters use public transport, down from the 31.7 per cent that did so back in 1989. And while just over half of the population (54.7 per cent) used cars for transport in 1989, almost three-quarters of the population (74.6 per cent) are doing so in 2010.

Vehicle emissions are a leading source of air pollution, coming in just behind power generation, and, in the same vein, a leading source contributing to the deterioration of the country’s questionable air quality.

Studies have shown, for example, that Sliema and Gzira suffer the highest levels of particulate matter pollution, found in vehicular emissions, and it is no coincidence that they are among the most heavily transited parts of the country when it comes to the country’s long antiquated bus fleet.

The new mass transit system will go a long, long way towards addressing emissions in those areas and indeed across the whole of the country.

Come July, we should all be seriously considering new ways to get from point A to point B.