With London congestion charging potentially putting 7x seater MPVs into a higher bracket is utter madness. Maybe diesel MPVs could be used to cure the rural public transport issue? Again, all these points need to be looked at in detail with EVERYBODY involved in the process, not just the evangelical greens and politicians who are too out of touch with the people that put them in power running the show.

This is where the environmental groups fail dismally to pursuade the general public of the validity in anything they say. The CO2 emissions from a typical double decker bus are approx 10 times that of my 4×4 truck. It is often said that to go by bus to my local town produces less CO2 but what is not made clear is that the argument only works if at least 10 seats are occupied on that bus and even then it still emits the same as my 4×4.

You’d have to have significantly more than 10 people on board to make a real saving in CO2 emissions when you also take into account that the bus has to be moved to and from the depot while carrying no passengers at all.

If my 4×4 had two people on board then the bus suddenly needs to have over 20 occupants to match the 4×4. You will NEVER see a rural bus out here with more than 10 people on it during the day.

Clearly, environmental groups need to stop fighting silly battles over particular vehicle types which simply diverts resource and public opinion when their arguments are fundamentally flawed and instead propose sensible suggestions such as running smaller 10 seat mini buses on these routes. The 10 seater minibus emits only 50% more CO2 than my 4×4 but with all 10 seats occupied produces a tiny amount per occupant. It is far easier to fill to capacity a smaller vehicle. I would not argue with that and it would mean much lower running costs to the fleet operator with more profit available – is this too sensible a suggestion????

The right thing to do would be to have loss-leader services where the busy services subsidise the rural services – this *may* already be the case, but public transport companies need to stop lining their own pockets in order to fund their own leader’s political ambitions (we’re talking Brian Souter here)

The sooner there is a major shake-up in public transport the better.

I don’t believe public transport should receive a penny more of my tax until it is guaranteed to provide me and my family with a proper service – bearing in mind it is already subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of millions a year.

My family live in a rural lincolnshire village. The first public transport bus of the day is at 9.15am!!!! How on earth is anybody expected to get to work on this when you are required in work by 9am……My daughter has just started work in a local town approx 10 miles away. She actually cycles in (risking life and limb as there or no cycle lanes, cycle paths or even grass verges) but in severe weather she would like to use the bus. This is not an option so we have to take her in the car. My wife also uses the bus to get to town for shopping but even she uses the Tesco bus as it is cleaner, more reliable and is free!!

I would like to see those demanding that we give up our cars and use public transport to actually come and live for a long period in a rural location. I believe they would see things in a different light. Usually such people live in the center of cities such as London which are well served by public transport. I don’t see why my taxes should pay for people in London to have better public transport, instead, if taxes are raised I’d want them spent on our rural public transport, even if it runs at a loss.

Too much media time is given to London as a beacon of how public transport can get people out of their cars when the reality is that London is completely unrepresentative of the rest of the UK.