• ESTHER Whitby (Brum’s not up to speed, December 14) says that nobody’s going to want to use HS2 to go to Birmingham because it can’t be bothered to provide decent travel and tourist information.

The Network West Midlands website has online copies of transport maps showing all bus, rail and tram routes in the conurbation. Furthermore paper copies can be picked up at a travel centre right in New Street station.

This is more than one can do in London where, not long ago, Transport for London discontinued the production of network maps online as well as on paper; as, incidentally, did Greater Manchester more recently.

More than 50 years ago it was network maps that inspired me to get interested in London’s transport system and I do not feel that any of the alternatives we are left with are anything like as good.

We badly need a one-stop shop where we can get public transport network information for any part of the UK – and the rest of the world, for that matter.

SIMON NORTON, NW3