While thousands of children around Malta have been dreading today’s official end to their summer, this morning also marked a traumatic experience for all the drivers out there. Back-to-school Monday always ushers in an increased amount of traffic, and this year seemed to be no exception, as one screenshot perfectly summarises.

The shot was shared on the Facebook group run by XFM’s dynamic duo Oz and Jay, and is a capture of the Malta Roads Traffic Update app. MRTU is a highly useful (and free) app which lets users update each other on varying states of traffic around the island, and it’s slowly becoming indispensable as traffic around Malta worsens. 

A typical MRTU traffic map would show one or two problematic points on the island, but this morning’s update (taken just after 8:15am) was a pile-up of red and yellow markers. “Can you tell it’s back to school Monday?” Jay added to his share.

The MRTU app shows varying levels of traffic represented by different colours. Yellow and red markers correspond to the worst traffic situations, corresponding to Heavy Traffic and Standstill respectively. 

Yellow markers are defined as “slow-moving”, while red ones are attached with the message, “Try to avoid as much as possible” to drivers. The app updates every 30 minutes.

While the situation on Malta’s roads seemed to be way better one hour later, the MRTU app still showed a couple of standstill situations in Swieqi, Lija, Mosta and Naxxar. Other central areas also marked moments of heavy traffic. 

Even though this morning’s MRTU traffic map showed a large amount of markers all around the central parts of the island, one user was not happy with the accuracy of the map, proposing a new map. 

“Just to help you out too, I’ve taken the liberty of colouring in all the areas of the island currently experiencing traffic,” one user said, sharing a photo of the most passive-agressive scribbling ever.

Did you find more traffic than usual this morning? Let us know in the comments and tag someone who suffers from road rage!

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).