Why We Drive When We Could Walk: Malta Study Explores Barriers to Active Mobility

Can convenience—and perhaps a bit of laziness—influence how we choose to get around?
And how might pedestrian-friendly measures reshape urban mobility?

Last month, Karyn Scerri, a researcher on the metaCCAZE project, successfully defended her PhD in sustainable mobility at the University of Malta. Her research explored travel behaviour in Malta’s main urban area, with a focus on why people often choose to drive short, easily walkable distances.

Understanding Car Reliance in Urban Malta

With a population of 542,041 persons and over 438,567 registered cars, Malta faces multiple challenges associated with car dependence, with over 84% of trips being done by car. Contributing to a sedentary, car-dependent lifestyle and numerous social, economic and environmental impacts.

The research sought to understand the role laziness may play in short-distance trips by applying the Lazy User Theory and the Perceived Exertion Theory within the context of Malta’s principal urban area, where 60% of the population resides.

The thesis involved a mixed-methods approach, including surveys with over 800 people and a combination of analytic methods, including PLS-SEM, mediation analysis, content analysis and sentiment analysis. The survey collected key data including;

• What aspects affect people’s choice to use the car over walking for short trips in Malta
• Walking and car use frequency
• Willing to walk specific distances if a car is available for that same trip (distance threshold)
• Percieved difficulty of walking (perceived exertion)
• Opinions of their neighbourhood’s walkability

Additionally, to gain more in-depth qualitative data, the research also included interviews with key stakeholders, and a co-creation workshop was held with the community.

Following this, a virtual urban living lab was then created to explore people’s reactions to proposed street interventions within their urban area, understand what they would like to see in their urban environment and highlight the key barriers and enablers of implementing interventions in the urban realm.

Key Findings

1. Car habits run deep: Respondents exhibited a strong car use habit and over 93% had access to a car and used it frequently and significantly more than walking.
2. The average ‘walkable’ distance was around 1.3km: This equates to around 17 minutes of walking. This is slightly less than the widely cited 1.6km threshold, and less than figures found in places like the Netherlands or Sweden. However, this resonates with the relevance of the x-minute cities, promoting the ability for people to access their daily needs and activities within 15-20 minutes of walking or cycling
3. Time and mental effort are critical factors for mode choice for local short trips: Physical effort was not a significant factor for short urban trips, indicating that Malta’s dependence on the car is not being fuelled by how physically effortful walking is, but rather by other determinants that are influencing this lazy user behaviour.
4. Interestingly, people who walk more often perceive their neighbourhoods more negatively: Those who experience the streets up close notice their flaws more than people who mostly travel by car. 89.7% of participants rated road infrastructure design (presence and quality of pavements, cycle lanes and street crossings) as a major issue in their neighbourhood.

What This Means for Urban Planning

This research suggests that walkability isn’t just about distance, it’s also about perception, comfort, and habit. Several policy suggestions were highlighted, including

• Make walking easier, safer, and more attractive and embrace co-creation and experimentation in urban intervention
• Target specific trip types (like school runs) for behaviour change
• Challenge the automatic use of cars through better design and policy

Future work

Looking to the future, the hope is that this research can contribute to a broader conversation about sustainable mobility in Malta, one where active mobility becomes not just possible, but preferable. This research provides a solid foundation for expanding it to diverse trip types, combining the use of the virtual platform with real-life street experiments, capturing longitudinal and before-after effects on travel behaviour.

Want to Know More?

If you’re interested in reading more about the research you can access the published papers here or contact the researcher karyn [dot] scerri [at] um [dot] edu [dot] mt or the supervisor, Prof Maria Attard on maria [dot] attard [at] um [dot] edu [dot] mt

The research work disclosed in this publication is funded by the Tertiary Education Scholarships Scheme.

Author: Lisa Marie Hanß

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