Bradford and Keighley have bucked the trend after bus use across West Yorkshire slumped last year.

Both areas increased their numbers of passengers despite the fact that county-wide about four million fewer people used the buses than the year before.

There are about 250,000 passenger journeys across the county each day.

The figure was 2.2 per cent down after increasing over the previous two years and a ten pence increase in concessionary fares has been given by transport chiefs as a main reason.

The cheaper fares were increased for the first time in several years last year from 20p to 30p.

But Bradford's biggest bus company, First, and Keighley & District Travel both said they were delighted their passenger figures were up.

The shock figures for the county will be reported at Friday's meeting of West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority and members will be told there has been "poor operator performance" in some areas.

But a spokesman said today there had been no particular problems with poor operations in the district.

The district's PTA members, Councillor Ann Ozolins (Lib Dem, Idle & Thackley), John Prestage (Lab, Keighley central) and Stanley King (Con, Heaton) said they had grave concerns about the report, however.

First Bradford operations director Khadim Hussain said their figure was 1.5 per cent up and Keighley & District operations director, Dave Alexander, said they had seen increases of up to 12 per cent this year after rebranding.

But Coun Ozolins said she believed there had still been problems in Bradford through service shake-ups.

She said a number of petitions had been submitted by pensioners who were already upset because their concessionary fares had been increased.

"They believe they are not being listened to by the company and I think First should take more notice of them as the main people using the day time buses."

Coun Prestage said: "I think it is very disappointing but there has been this reduction across West Yorkshire at a time when so much is being done to encourage public transport.

"Keighley & District is one of the best operators but First Bradford does have a lot of changes to services."

Coun King said he believed the whole situation needed to be examined if they were to achieve a target of five per cent more passengers by 2006.7.

"There is a lot of competition from private cars and I know there is difficulty recruiting staff, even though the wages aren't unattractive," he said.

Mr Hussain said: "Our passenger numbers are up 1.5 per cent year on year so we have to be doing something right.

"With regard to the service changes, we confirm to time tables set by the PTA and do our best to adhere to it."

He said bus services had also operated reliably during prolonged disruption on Bradford roads including the city centre and had consulted well over changes.