Single parents hoping for a more child-friendly bus service aren?t likely to get help from the Public Transport Board anytime soon.

This week single mum Kutiwa Trott complained that bus drivers either drove off if she tried to get on with her baby, stroller and diaper bag ? or told her she was carrying too much stuff.

She said buses with platforms to pick up babies in strollers and wheelchairs were common in England and were designed so the person in the child didn?t even have to get out of its buggy.

But Public Transport Board director Dan Simmons said: ?I cannot speak to that. There are other buses out there with different designs probably more compatible to baby carriage.?

But he said buses with platforms needed inset wheels which took up a lot of potential seat space and reduced the capacity for transporting large numbers of people. He said there was not a lot of hope for change.

?What we do is cater to the majority of users on the island and we do that well. I understand her but I don?t understand what I can do to help her.?

The woman also said the last buses to her John Smith?s Bay home from Hamilton left at 6.15 p.m. which was too early while the first Saturday bus to her Paget job came too late. Mr. Simmons said that complaint had not reached him but the whole service was currently being surveyed to assess where demands had shifted. He said St. David?s, the West End and Berkeley would all be likely to get more service.

However, he said an experiment in running a late bus number six bus service to the East End had seen mostly empty buses, despite calls from people wanting the service.

He said the official policy was that a bus route had to average eight passengers to be deemed worthwhile. Feedback on what buses were needed came from all sources, said Mr Simmons, including comments to staff and drivers, petitions, letters, MPs and even radio talk shows.