Giant bendy-buses ferrying people through the city centre could hold the key to plans to pedestrianise central Oxford.

Oxfordshire County Council transport officers say one way to reduce the number of buses entering the city centre would be to have a fleet of the high-capacity buses shuttling passengers to and from a new terminus near Magdalen Bridge or South Park.

The buses are just part of a transport package intended to turn key city centre streets into a pedestrians-only zone.

As reported in the Oxford Mail on Tuesday, the council is proposing the pedestrianisation of Queen Street, George Street, Magdalen Street and Broad Street over a five-year period from next year.

County Hall also wants to cut the number of buses using High Street and St Aldate's.

With no practical alternative route for buses from the east of the city, the council believes the bendy buses, branded as ftr (short for future) on services they operate in Yorkshire, could cut bus flows in the High by up to 50 per cent. In a briefing paper called Where Will Buses Go? transport officers are suggesting passengers would arrive from the city's suburbs at the Plain or London Place, then transfer to a bendy-bus.

The document says: "Improving the environment in High Street and St Aldate's is perhaps our biggest challenge. We need to reduce the number of buses using the street, but not the number of passengers."

It said the only alternative to creating a transfer terminus east of Magdalen Bridge would be to use bigger buses on existing routes but cut service frequencies.

It also proposes the rerouting away from High Street of express coach services to and from London and its airports.

The first stage of the council's blueprint for change will see the removal of bus stops from Queen Street next year, with the pavements widened. Buses would be diverted away from the street at some point between 2011 and 2013.

Preliminary talks have been held with Oxford's two main bus operators about the proposals but no agreement has been reached on the way ahead. The council said on Wednesday that legal powers could be used to force through its plans, but only as a last resort.

Council leader Keith Mitchell said: "The detail on this work is currently at its earliest stages. However, people should be in no doubt we are serious about improving these routes."

Neither Go-Ahead, the company which owns the Oxford Bus Company, nor Stagecoach, have any ftr buses in their fleets, with the only current operator being First Group, owner of the county's main rail firm, First Great Western.