Councillors want a reliability study to be carried out on a troubled bus service.

Last August, the 10/10A city circle bus, which links the city centre with the John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Wood Farm and Cowley, was split in two after Stagecoach blamed roadworks, traffic problems and driver shortages for the unreliable service.

The evening and Sunday service was going to be axed, until Oxfordshire County Council negotiated a deal with the Chiltern Queens bus company, based in Woodcote, near Reading, to save this part of the service, now known as the 10C/10D service.

However, the Chiltern Queens contract ends after February.

Chiltern Queens operations manager Philip Smith said the company had received only one or two complaints.

He said another bus company had now registered the evening service and his firm would withdraw on February 9.

He said: "The evening service is quite a good one and is well used. But we run it on a subsidy, and another company is prepared to run it without a subsidy."

City councillors at Wednesday night's east area parliament meeting expressed concern that complaints were still being received about service unreliability, and were worried about what would happen when the subsidy ran out.

The parliament's vice-chairman, Cllr Bob Hoyle, said: "We should continue to push for these services to be running and improved. There are constant rumours that they are for the chop -- and indeed they were, until Chilterns Queens rescued part of it."

Cllr Jacob Sanders said that since Chiltern Queens had taken over the running of the 10C/10D service, fares had gone up.

Sitting as a non-voting county councillor, Cllr Craig Simmons said: "Although there is only a six-month contract for the evening and Sunday service, this is not an unusual length of time.

"Considering the troubles with the route, I would support the idea of an investigation into the reliability of the service."

The meeting agreed to ask Oxfordshire County Council to carry out a study into the reliability of the service.