A total of 1,253,708 passengers travelled between Malta and Gozo during the fourth quarter in 2017, up by 8.1% when compared to the corresponding quarter in 2016.

The latest statistics by the National Statistics Office show that the highest number of passengers in the fourth quarter was recorded in October - 486,147. The number of vehicles increased by 6.7%, totalling 365,899.

The number of trips in the fourth quarter of 2017 stood at 5,438, a decrease of 0.9% over the same period in 2016. Most trips in the Quarter took place in October - 1,964.

Annual perspective: 2017

During 2017, movements between Malta and Gozo continued to increase. Overall the number of trips rose by 125 over 2016. There were a total of 22,529 trips in 2017. Vehicle movements between the islands increased by 84,908 over the previous year, while the number of passengers went up by 250,840.

As in previous years, August recorded the highest number of trips, 2,158. August also registered the largest share of vehicles and passengers crossing between the two islands, 158,981 and 582,199, respectively. In total, 5,383,840 passengers and 1,544,022 vehicles crossed the islands in 2017.

During the year 2017, passenger traffic originating from Ċirkewwa was busiest on Friday and Saturday, whereas highest volumes from Mġarr were recorded on Sunday and Saturday.