SPT agenda

Ken Houston's "No great loss if transport group hits the buffers" (Opinion, 25 March) deserves to be challenged. Like him, we can quote epigrams – in his case, how about Alexander Pope's "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"?

In 2006, regional transport partnerships like Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) were established to join up transport services across a series of local council boundaries. This "shared services" agenda is favoured by the Scottish Government and Cosla and was further highlighted by Sir John Arbuthnot in his report on the Clyde Valley councils. Sir John noted the eight councils in the Clyde Valley should further develop the shared services for transport provided by SPT. Read this as more of what SPT does. Not less.

SPT provides transport planning, transport co-ordination, capital investment and project development for our 12 member councils in the west of Scotland. This includes 33 million spent on school transport taking 49,000 students to school every term day; 5.5m organising Scotland's largest concessionary fares scheme; 5m in this year alone developing ten new park-and-ride schemes; paying for hundreds of bus services where there's no private operator at a cost of 6.5m a year; Dial a Bus services for the elderly and infirm – 3.1m; and organising 22,000 bus departures a week from our four bus stations.

Then there's our ambitious plan for Subway modernisation. The cost won't be anything like the lump sum of 400m reported recently.

We also thought out of the box with our new station at Partick. It integrates bus, rail and Subway in one of the UK's most advanced transport complexes. Ever been there, Ken, or is just the Paris Metro capable of such excellence?

DAVID FAGAN

Strathclyde Partnership for Transport