The Birmingham Mail has tackled the hot potato subject of bus travel on its patch, with an in-depth reader survey which prompted an unprecedented response.

A big debate is currently raging in Birmingham about falling bus passenger numbers, and so the paper published a lengthy questionnaire in-paper and online over three days asking readers about their use of public transport.

Questions ranged from how often they used public transport and why they travelled by bus to what the main drawbacks were - and almost 1,300 readers replied.

Transport correspondent Ben Hurst said: "We wanted to get a feel for the experiences of our readers when using public transport and were surprised by the results.

"We had a tremendous response. It was an in-depth survey with no inducement to reply but we had 1,290 responses.

"Our marketing department had never seen anything like it."

The Mail published the results in a series of news stories, and they will also be taken to Whitehall by Coun Gary Clarke, chairman of Centro-West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority, next month where he will meet Transport Secretary Doug Alexander.

According to the survey more than 45 per cent of respondents said they had regularly seen drug-taking on buses in the last year and almost 70 per cent had regularly seen people smoking on buses, despite a ban.

More than 35 per cent also said they had witnessed regular threatening or anti-social behaviour towards drivers, with a similar percentage witnessing regular violence or threats towards themselves or other travellers.

Ben said: "We were surprised at the number of people who had come into contact with violence on buses, but it goes to show that anti-social behaviour needs to be tackled."