A RAPID transport scheme designed to speed commuters to Oxford city centre has taken a major step forward.

Former city centre manage Marcus Lapthorn has been recruited to lead the project team aiming to set up a £30m guided expressway system.

The Guided Transport Express (GTE) would link the city centre with the Redbridge and Peartree park and ride sites using specially constructed concrete guideways built alongside the existing train line.

Once inside the city, the buses would travel normally on the roads with the aim of cutting congestion.

Similar systems already exist in Leeds and Bradford and a new scheme is to be built in Cambridge. The GTE concept has been considered in Oxford since 1994, but Mr Lapthorn's appointment is designed to ensure all of the component parts of the project come together.

During seven years as city centre manager, he was involved with securing funding for the City's comprehensive CCTV system, introducing the police-retailer radio link and with city centre regeneration projects.

Mr Lapthorn said: "The problem at the moment is that bus lanes peter out and then buses are stuck in the traffic.

"With this system, the only vehicles allowed on the guideways will be the new modified vehicles which provide much quicker and greener transportation.

"The issue is gaining permission to run this new line through the railway corridor."

An environmental impact study for the system, which could be operational by 2008, is being drafted.

Philip Kirk, managing director of the Oxford Bus Company and a GTE board member, said: "GTE brings together many of those organisations which are committed to breathing new life into the public transport infrastructure of the city, and Marcus's experience as city centre manager will stand him in good stead."