TRAVELLING by taxi up St Aldate’s yesterday, between the police station and Carfax I counted 12 buses, moving in both directions.

Each was carrying two to four passengers, and they were mostly double-deckers.

At Carfax, during a 10-minute wait on foot, I counted 21 more buses, again with very few passengers. This is not unusual – after 9.15am buses are usually nearly empty of passengers until about 4pm, except on market day when local buses earn their keep.

Why, when householders have to pay to put their cars in their own streets and woe betide them if they put an empty tin into the wrong wheelie bin, is this enormous waste of petrol and horrendous amount of pollution allowed?

What happened to the small mini-buses? These could be used at what must surely be known by all bus companies as ‘low-user’ times.

Vehicles using the city centre roads are also vomiting unpleasant emissions as they wait behind buses stopping to let in or out one or two passengers. Cannot a more ecologically friendly way of bus control be found?

PAMELA ST CLAIR

Argyle Street

Oxford