'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” That desperate cry from Shakespeare's Richard III can be heard echoing around the bus shelters of Tauranga, where would-be commuters wait despairingly for the bus that will never come.

Since the introduction of a new network and operator, the entire regime - from back office to front line - appears to be spiralling out of control.

A third world service? Well, no. That would be doing Yemen and the Sudan a disservice. In those chaotic countries the bus does eventually arrive, even if one must share the ride with recently lynched chickens and piglets on their way to market.

The Regional Council's public transport model is fundamentally flawed. Hub-and-spoke systems are for bicycle wheels, not lonely outposts like the Farm Street ‘Interchange'.

Furthermore, that approach relies heavily on near-faultless cohesion and communication, neither of which have yet been sighted. Failing a council re-think, commuters trying to navigate the system will remain bewildered, like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.

P Bullick, Bethlehem.