How hard it is to follow someone who has been an outstanding figure for many years.

Anthony Eden was the obvious successor as Prime Minister to Winston Churchill.

Even though he was an expert on foreign policy, he could not handle the Suez crisis and retired with his reputation in ruins.

David Moyes was chosen as Manchester United manager following the retirement of Alex Ferguson.

Despite past successes, he did not last a season before quitting the job.

Tesco could find no one to match the achievements of Terry Leahy when he stepped down as its boss.

So Martin Harris had a daunting task when he took over as managing director of Brighton and Hove Buses from Roger French.

While bus travel generally declined in Britain, Mr French presided over the most successful provincial operation in the country.

Passenger numbers rose steadily and this helped to reduce traffic congestion. The buses were made to look attractive and distinctive.

They were designed to take disabled people. Waiting times were installed at many bus stops.

The idea of naming buses after notable people in the area caught on as did the startling liveries.

Mr French was always available for a comment and became one of the most recognisable figures in the city.

He also played a big part in projects ranging from The Martlets hospice to business associations.

It must have been tempting for Go Ahead, which owns the bus company, to install a young whizz kid in his place.

Instead it looked towards the north east where Mr Harris had been part of another successful team.

Some readers with longer memories may also have recalled that as young managers Martin Harris and Roger French had worked together in Brighton and Hove.

Together they had taken steps to improve the city’s buses before Mr Harris decided to take a tempting post up north.

It is more than four years now since Roger French retired and Mr Harris has shown since then that he too has a sure touch when it comes to running buses.

He has carried on with innovations such as putting wi-fi on buses while pursuing ventures like tackling the pollution problem in Brighton.

Looking at the winter timetable due to be introduced later this month, there are some seasonal reductions of summer services.

But remarkably there are also more buses being introduced on some of the more popular routes.

They are now so frequent that on many services during the day there is no need for bus passengers to take a timetable.

That is rare outside London where buses are also booming.

Striking liveries have been given to the main routes so that passengers can see instantly which ones they are.

Brighton and Hove is also managing to persuade most of its passengers to pay fares before boarding buses which speeds up services considerably.

It has introduced bargain prices for long journeys, encouraging many more people to use services to towns such as Tunbridge Wells and Eastbourne.

There are occasional calls for Brighton to reintroduce trams on routes similar to those which ran a century ago.

But they are usually successful only in major conurbations and in Brighton many people would have to change on to buses to complete journeys to the suburbs.

Trams also lack the flexibility of buses.

It’s hard sometimes to remember how awful the Brighton and Hove bus services were before the French/Harris era. They were unreliable and appeared to be in terminal decline.

Now Brighton and Hove Buses is one of the city’s biggest employers and other operators often pay visits to see how it is done.

It’s not easy running buses in a crowded city where congestion is a constant problem and there is no proper bus station.

The unions are clamouring for better pay in a coastal resort where the cost of living is high. Yet fares have been pitched almost as far as they can go without losing trade.

There is competition from one of the industry’s giants in Stagecoach and from smart, small operators like The Big Lemon who like to stress their environmental credentials.

Yet the system works so well that where I live in Hove there are more buses in the middle of the night than many parts of Britain have during the day.