It's funny you say that since the majority of bustimes data in Scotland comes from Traveline Scotland, who in turn gets 80% of their data from local authorities. Therefore if an error exists on bustimes in Scotland, it almost always means it's an issue from the local authority or an issue from an operator themselves (for a few big operators who directly send data to Traveline Scotland).
In Scotland, there's only a few operators for whom Traveline data is not used. These being Stagecoach (and data comes direct from Stagecoach themselves
https://www.stagecoachbus.com/open-data), and a few operators who use websites created by 'Passenger' (Ie McGills). Operators using Passenger, the data comes from their own websites (operators such as McGills/West Coast Motors/JMB for example)
Garbage in, garbage out. And that's made more difficult when local authorities and operators consistently ignore emails relating to their poor data to Traveline or their own open data. Bustimes can only operate with the data it's given and if operators and local authorities provide shoddy data, that is what gets shown sadly. Just to give some examples, I know of someone who contacted McGills to get issues resolved in November 2024 which is an issue on their website information but mostly causes issues in the open data (data that they literally have open to the public and anyone can download
https://www.mcgillsscotlandeast.co.uk/open-data) and the issues still exist now because the commercial team refuse to fix it. As such bustimes either has to keep manually changing data, or just show the poor data given to it by McGills.
It's all good slating Bustimes for poor data, but thankfully as each timetable page shows at the bottom where the data comes from for that timetable, the slating should perhaps be diverted away from bustimes and towards those who are actively pushing out poor data.
I don't have the time or energy to get into a heated debate, and it's arguably getting off topic in this thread anyway, but I will try to make my points clearer just once.
I do understand about the poor data from local authorities and operators; I am well aware of this, as I study every new or revised timetable for every Scottish service when it is implemented. I have many thousands of timetables, electronic and paper, going back years, and in there are any number of examples of very shoddy commercial department productions. I would argue that Stagecoach North Scotland and the Highland Country predecessor have been streets away the worst culprit. For a small current example, just look at today's service change summary on their website - read about the change to Elgin service 32, hit the link for the new timetable, and it takes you to Buchan service 62; a lot of use that is. Another gem from the past was the Black Isle area timetable book which contained two copies of the timetable for service 62, which were different from each other! Then there was the Skye timetable one year which, as always, contained the various seasonal applicability dates for the different services, except that they overlapped, so you had no idea what was running during which dates. Etc, etc ...
But I have a real issue with this constant excuse of garbage in/garbage out. So far as I am concerned, Traveline should be taking responsibility and fixing any garbage that comes in before any goes out. Without doing so, they are just knowingly putting rubbish out into the public domain, and that is not acceptable for an organisation that is advertising itself as the source of such information for public transport users. They have no credibility in my eyes.
If there are systems issues that affect their capabilities to manipulate things, then they should be sorted, and in the meantime they should make it quite clear on their site when it is likely that information is unreliable. In my (significant) dealings with Traveline Scotland I have found them to be unhelpful, unresponsive, lazy and disinterested. The issue with them does not just relate to timetables, it extends to their main travel update facility. I'll give just one example. When First Glasgow's night services ceased in March 2020 due to Covid, Traveline put a long term notice on their update page reminding users in bold that no night services were operating in Glasgow. Fine. But that notice was still there months after the services had resumed, were available to the public, and indeed were present in their own timetable section. I don't know how many times I called them to politely point this out, but I got the same disinterested and couldn't care less response every time. That is just one of numerous examples, and no, when I call, I am not aggressive or difficult about these matters, but just make polite suggestions to them.
I find that a significant contrast with my own dealings with the operators. To take some random examples, I have had extremely positive telephone discussions when I have called Stagecoach East Scotland, McGill's, and notably Lothian Buses when they made a mess of some of their Christmas publicity one year. They were only too grateful to take the call, investigate the issue, and in all cases changed things very quickly.
I am sure somebody or other will quote resource issues at Traveline; I don't know how well it is resourced, but I do know I have been singularly unimpresed with all the people I have ever spoken to there. It seems to me a matter of priorities, do you put out everything you can, knowing lumps of it are inaccurate, or do you exercise some form of quality control, even if you have to skip some info at times and refer readers to the operator or authority for clarification. I know which I'd prefer. And if, as you say, Bus Times gets a significant amount of its data from Traveline, then Bus Times would be all the better for Traveline doing a better job. End of rant.
