Steve Kennard is being somewhat mischievous in pursuing his question of whether a private transport company should pay for public infrastructure (Letters, May 4).

The current regime for public transport provision is totally open to the free market for anyone to provide a service. As a businessman, Steve will appreciate no private company can take the risk of building a bus lane only to find another company starts running competitively unencumbered by any of those infrastructure costs.

The only solution is to guarantee exclusivity to the investing company, which would not be desirable as the opportunity for competition leads to service standards rising as I explained in my previous reply.