Pledges

We read your editorial (Sunday Morning Post, June 15) 'Catching the competition bus' and we were generally pleased that the 'thrusting and confident' nature of our business undertaking was recognised. Indeed, with an expected investment in hundreds of new buses in 1998/9, we would argue that our thrust is not yet at full throttle.

That said, we believe our acknowledged success in improving quality of service cannot be solely attributed to investment in a modern fleet. Attractive and comfortable as our bright new air-conditioned buses may be, such features do little to console customers if the less tangible elements of bus service quality are regularly deficient.

At Citybus, we believe in managing the whole experience of bus travel in such a way as to ensure continued organic growth in the market.

To this end, we offer timetable pledges on many routes and a high degree of confidence in schedule adherence.

Reliability is sacrosanct as are safety, comfort and good value socially acceptable fares.

For many routes, we offer a 'walk-on' service at a frequency of operation in excess of every 10 minutes throughout the whole day.

In essence, whilst investment in a modern fleet undoubtedly gives rise to new found interest in bus-travel, it is the 'added value' service items which must be credited for the past four years of phenomenal and unabated growth in the demand for our bus services on Hong Kong Island.

After all, to quote a famous marketing maxim, 'You can only market the wrong product once.' MARK SAVELLI Operations Manager Citybus Limited