Sir, Richard Mann (Letters, September 15) is right in saying that problems on the A34 need to be tackled by reducing local traffic. Since it is a trunk road the Department for Transport will be pursuing this approach anyway.

However, I disagree that a fast Bicester-Oxford rail service is the best way of achieving this. Even if it ran frequently it would not appeal to the majority of people making local journeys in the A34 corridor.

We already have frequent bus services to Oxford from Bicester and Abingdon and park-and-ride services from sites close to the A34 at Peartree, Seacourt, Redbridge and Water Eaton. The county council is considering piloting 'remote' park-and-ride sites to capture motorists nearer the start of their journey. Put these elements together and for a relatively modest investment it would be possible to build additional sites close to the A34 junctions at Bicester (M40), Abingdon (Fairacres) and Milton Park and to link these by extensions of the existing park-and-ride services operating at high frequency.

The critical factor is achieving congestion-free conditions for buses entering and leaving the A34. This can be done in two ways.

One is to adopt the bus-lane principle - widening slip roads and utilising hard shoulders where necessary. However this implies accepting continued congestion for other users.

The second is to adapt the cordon charging method used in the Central London Scheme so as to achieve free-flowing conditions for all and to use the revenues to support alternative services. Either could be implemented in years, rather than decades, and both deserve to be presented for public debate.

Peter Headicar , Department of Planning, Oxford Brookes University