SADLY, Chris Nelson is misinformed ("Let's have some bus competition", Letters, December 27). If he wishes to make the comparison between fares charged in other parts of Yorkshire then he should first check his facts: a day ticket offering unlimited travel in South Yorkshire is currently £3.50, whereas the price of the equivalent ticket for Leeds will be £3.30 from next month.

A straight comparison is nevertheless misleading as our strategy in York is to encourage customers to buy their tickets in advance and to do this we are not increasing the prices of our period tickets by the same extent.

A weekly ticket increases by only £1 to £12 whereas at £40, the price of a four weekly ticket remains the same (compare that to the £54 you'd pay in South Yorkshire).

With these tickets available from 50 or so Paypoint outlets throughout York, those who purchase their tickets in advance will save money. As more people do it, everybody will benefit from quicker journeys as less time is spent at bus stops waiting for somebody to pay with a £20 note.

I'm not sure that more competition would lead to generally lower fares in the long term either. Stagecoach and Arriva are subject to exactly the same cost pressures as we are and, in the areas that they predominate, have had to make the same sort of decisions we have with regard to their prices.

York has had the benefit of £11 million of investment in new buses and for that we have a service that that we can be justifiably proud of, but investment in new vehicles is only one of a range of increased costs that have to be met out of fare revenue. The point has come where we have no alternative than to pass these increases on.

Peter Edwards,

Commercial director,

First York Ltd,

James Street,

York.

Updated: 09:54 Monday, January 02, 2006