150 GoTo cars will be available for hiring as Malta’s first national car sharing initiative was officially launched Wednesday by Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects Ian Borg.

The €8 million initiative is being run by Car Sharing Services Malta, a subsidiary of CAR2GO Israel, and Borg said that this is a step in the direction of the government’s vision to have 5,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2020, and to introduce new green transport options that will contribute to reducing traffic on the roads.

The service works through an app which finds the closest available car to you, which you are to drive to your destination and park it in one of the designated parking spaces across 68 localities in Malta and Gozo.

The parking spaces are marked in orange, linked to 225 electric charging stations, and are also positioned close to other transport modes such as us stops or ferries to make the individuals journey as efficient as possible. 450 parking spaces have been reserved for this service.

The service is already in operation in Israel, and it is estimated that an average of 17 cars were replaced for every CAR2GO vehicle where the car sharing initiative was introduced.

Car Sharing Services Malta CEO Liran Golan said that the global trend has seen a shift from ownership to usership that leads to a greener solution of getting around in congested cities.

The users of this service are charged 28 cents per minute which covers al insurance, road license tax, Valletta CVA fees, charging and parking costs. There is also a membership of €7 euro per month, with different packages for heavy users.

Photos Alenka Falzon