In an interview in January, Minister Aaron Farrugia stated that if we could stagger services throughout the morning, late at night or before dawn, we could flatten the spike of vehicles that causes gridlock during rush hour. It is a statistical fact that around 70,000 vehicles pour onto the roads every morning because work and school begin roughly at the same time for everyone, as do hospital outpatient appointments, court hearings, delivery and waste collection activities and several other services. Another gridlock in various localities occurs again in the late afternoon rush hour, when many offices, factories, companies, schools and other business outlets end their activities and their employees work their way home.

With this factual background, Minister Farrugia’s idea makes a lot of sense, and perhaps such a measure should have been considered a long time ago. Yet, the measure itself, if it is to be introduced and implemented properly and efficiently, requires much study from a holistic point of view. The whole concept is based on a flexible timetable. Traffic has definite peak periods when large numbers of trips are made. This phenomenon is generally attributable to the fact that at the beginning of the day, there is a lot of activity, causing many people to travel nearly simultaneously to work or school. A similar phenomenon, though less marked, occurs in the afternoon when work and business days end. Consequently, congestion can be relieved to the extent that it is feasible to spread the start times of different schedules over a longer period of time.

Flex time involves establishing different starting and ending times for the various activities that go on in our industrial areas, towns and villages, such as work, business, university, school, college and the like, so that each activity begins at a different time than the others. The purpose of this measure is to avoid very definite peak times by staggering journeys over a longer period. In this manner, the time of greatest demand for the roadway system is spread out and the streets are less congested. The best results are obtained when rush-hour trips are distributed over a longer period of time.

The reorganisation of schedules depends directly on the nature of activities in each locality and area. In any case, care should be taken not to interfere with the normal functioning of the activities subject to modification. Every area has different business activities, an educational system that may or may not have evenly staggered schedules and a culture that may or may not facilitate the application of this measure.

There is a tendency for schools to start earlier than most jobs and despite the free school transport scheme, we still have a good number of parents opting to drop off their children on their way to work. Higher education, business and most private activities can have a more flexible schedule.

One definite option is to have different starting times for work in different sectors, such as the public sector, the private sector, banking and construction. Sometimes, this occurs spontaneously, as construction tends to begin as soon as the sun rises. The public sector, in turn, can start earlier or later, depending on national idiosyncrasies or the number of hours offices are open. If they are open for six hours, it is feasible to schedule the entire workday before lunch. Bank customers can conduct their business on the internet, so there is no need for banks to open early. Indeed, internet banking is on the rise in Malta.

Another possibility is to encourage businesses to allow employees to work flexible hours wherever feasible. In other words, each employee would choose his own times for arriving and departing, as long as the required number of hours are worked and they are present when all employees are needed for meetings or other joint activities. Telecommuting, taking advantage of modern communications technology, the internet, email and other innovations, can also help spread out schedules. In any event, it must be acknowledged that the private sector lends itself better to such creative solutions.

There is a lot of validity in flex time as a means of reducing congestion. The measure itself should yield several positive results. A longer time will no longer be employed when people are travelling because of less traffic during the heaviest times, which means shorter travel times and lower vehicular operating costs. It carries low implementation costs as the measure itself does not cost any significant amount to implement, although there may be costs stemming from the need to adjust to new schedules. There is also the possibility of maintaining habits, as commuters would have the option of continuing to travel at their preferred times. Furthermore, there are savings in public transit fleets, as a longer rush hour means that the same total number of passengers can be moved with fewer buses and, therefore, the density of trips is reduced.

Of course, the possibility of a downside to all this cannot be excluded. There might be costs involved in adjusting to new schedules, as the required adjustment could result in temporary productivity losses. Additional trips may be required because the staggering could hinder a combination of trips that were previously feasible. That is typical of parents taking their children to school and continuing on to work, which may not be possible without immediately returning home.

The whole measure will certainly call for a radical change in habits. However, changing habits is at least a subjective inconvenience, as it entails rearranging activities. It takes time to arrive at a new system. The greater fear would be the difficulty of implementing the measure. I am afraid that in the private sector, the authorities would have little chance of mandating a certain schedule of activities. But do not despair yet!

To date, I have always wondered why we call it “rush hour” when nothing moves. Hopefully, if, and when this flex time and staggered services system is introduced in Malta, rush hour traffic will one day mean that traffic does “rush” through!