As Chris Gould (Letters, August 7) resides in Worthing, which has no bus lanes apart from in the semi-pedestrianised South Street, his comments must refer to Brighton.

If so, he shows a poor understanding of traffic and transport problems.

Central Brighton has a very restricted and congested road system.

Several bottlenecks limit the amount of traffic that can get into or through the area.

Given this, it has been the massive (35 per cent to 40 per cent) increase in bus patronage that has increased the number of people able to get into the centre and helped underpin the city's economic revival over the past few years.

Without it, Churchill Square would not have been the success it is and congestion far worse than currently faced may have put off major new employers from coming into the city.

While Roger French and his team deserve much praise for improved services, these improvements would not have been possible without the huge reliability gains brought about by the bus lanes through the central area.

Mr Gould talks about roadspace and bus lanes slowing traffic.

Generally, this is not true. As junction capacity at critical junctions is the only problem seriously delaying traffic, so the only critical road-space is that close to critical junctions (such as Preston Circus northbound, where there is no bus lane).

This means useful bus lanes can be provided elsewhere without hindering traffic flow.

Without these, bus services would deteriorate, forcing more people to use cars, thus increasing congestion in an accelerating downward spiral.

Traffic signals in the centre of Brighton are centrally controlled.

The system often holds traffic at the previous set of traffic signals so congestion does not appear as bad as it really is and traffic does not form long jams as often as it would without the system.

However, this does mean drivers can gain a false impression of where the real problems lie.

For example, signal engineers may choose to hold general traffic at the end of the St Peter's bus lane instead of having polluting stationary vehicles queuing through the important London Road shopping area.

Restricting or removing bus lanes would make Brighton's traffic problems much worse.

-Peter Elvidge, Secretary, National Federation of Bus Users, Central Sussex