Bus problems

This letter is published in today's Leicester Mercury:

Bus problems

In response to Lorna Crane's letter (Mailbox, March 6) provision of the easy access buses on service 50 and 51, is a matter for the operator, Arriva, not the city council.

Arriva took delivery of a fleet of easy access Volvo single-deck buses last year, which should help. But at present, their fleet is a mixture of easy access and step-entrance buses.

Bus operators are not required by law to have a 100 per cent easy access fleet until 2017, and Arriva's fleet should conform to this well before then.

But Arriva don't help their own case by scheduling easy access and step entrance buses on the same roads, without showing any indication in their timetables which journeys will be run by which types of bus.

Until the step entrance buses are eliminated from the fleet, it would probably be better to restrict them to certain routes and specify clear which routes are easy access and which are step entrance.

Terry Kirby, Barwell.