bustimes.org showing bus straying from booked route

[AY1975]

Have you ever been waiting for a bus and looked on bustimes.org (or another bus tracking website or app) and found that your bus appeared to have strayed from its booked route?

It happened to me yesterday: I was waiting for the last bus on Littles Travel service 140 from South Wingfield to Alfreton, Derbyshire, and when I first looked on bustimes.org it showed the bus as being between Holloway and Crich, but when I looked again a few minutes later it appeared to have strayed from the usual route. It appeared to be on Ripley Road, Belper. Needless to say it never turned up and I tried calling a taxi but there were none available for an hour so I ended up walking all the way.

I am guessing that there may have been a diversion on that I didn't know about (I didn't see any notices about diversions anywhere, including on the 11.05 bus from Alfreton to South Wingfield that morning) or that the driver may have taken the wrong route either by mistake or deliberately in the hope of clocking off early.

If there were no passengers left on the bus after leaving Crich, I would guess that the driver may have assumed that no-one would be waiting for it anywhere between there and Alfreton so s/he may have decided to take a short cut to the depot. That certainly isn't a reasonable assumption to make, though, even if 99.9% of the time there's no-one on the last Alfreton-bound bus after leaving Crich.

I took some screenshots of those maps on bustimes.org showing the bus on the wrong route, and I will email them to Derbyshire County Council public transport department.

See also this now closed thread on bustimes.org at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/bustimes-org.225401/, this one on apps that show bus routes at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/any-apps-that-show-bus-routes.231347/ and this one from 2017 on poor reliability of Littles Travel evening services at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/littles-travel-poor-reliability-on-evening-buses.144836/

 

[Bletchleyite]

Deliberate route cutting used to be endemic in Milton Keynes but more or less stopped when GPS tracking started. Surprised to see it happening now.

 

[PeterC]

On routes where there is only one "destination" such as market town to villages I have known drivers regularly skip sections when thet have no passengers to set down. I have also known the bustimes map put vehicles in impossible locations but that normally corrects in a couple of minutes

 

[leedslad82]

Happens all time. In leeds i live on route of 4f bus but often find its got confused and followed 4 route meaning my estate is missed

 

[Failed Unit]

I have seen it a lot during roadworks/ accidents. It is sometimes interesting seeing where they end up to keep to as much of the route as possible.

 

[ChrisC]

It happened to me a couple of months ago on Trent Barton’s 141 route between Mansfield and Nottingham. Although normally an hourly service there have been many buses cancelled due to shortage of drivers. One morning I was intending to get the bus which passes through the village of Linby at 9.40am into Nottingham. This was a bus which had seen regular cancellations so I checked it was running both on bustimes.org and Trent Barton’s own Hugo live bus times app. It was running and on its way from Mansfield but running about 15 minutes late. I waited at the bus stop in Linby and saw the progress of the bus on the Hugo app until it was in the next village of Papplewick and was showing as due in 2 minutes and then as due. It never arrived. I looked again at bustimes.org only to see that the bus was now further along the route towards Nottingham and was now running to time. It had completely missed out Linby and the town of Hucknall. What annoyed me most was that I had used the Trent Barton app which led me to believe it was on its way and wasted 20 minutes waiting at a bus stop.

 

[richw]

I’ve noticed GPS wandering on the data too, I’ve been driving stuff and know Where I’ve been, and the trace has shown me crossing fields or on parallel roads.

 

[pjnathanail]

Have you ever been waiting for a bus and looked on bustimes.org (or another bus tracking website or app) and found that your bus appeared to have strayed from its booked route?

It happened to me yesterday: I was waiting for the last bus on Littles Travel service 140 from South Wingfield to Alfreton, Derbyshire, and when I first looked on bustimes.org it showed the bus as being between Holloway and Crich, but when I looked again a few minutes later it appeared to have strayed from the usual route. It appeared to be on Ripley Road, Belper. Needless to say it never turned up and I tried calling a taxi but there were none available for an hour so I ended up walking all the way.

I am guessing that there may have been a diversion on that I didn't know about (I didn't see any notices about diversions anywhere, including on the 11.05 bus from Alfreton to South Wingfield that morning) or that the driver may have taken the wrong route either by mistake or deliberately in the hope of clocking off early.

If there were no passengers left on the bus after leaving Crich, I would guess that the driver may have assumed that no-one would be waiting for it anywhere between there and Alfreton so s/he may have decided to take a short cut to the depot. That certainly isn't a reasonable assumption to make, though, even if 99.9% of the time there's no-one on the last Alfreton-bound bus after leaving Crich.

I took some screenshots of those maps on bustimes.org showing the bus on the wrong route, and I will email them to Derbyshire County Council public transport department.

See also this now closed thread on bustimes.org at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/bustimes-org.225401/, this one on apps that show bus routes at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/any-apps-that-show-bus-routes.231347/ and this one from 2017 on poor reliability of Littles Travel evening services at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/littles-travel-poor-reliability-on-evening-buses.144836/

Sorry to hear about this rather poor experience you have had locally to me. I have a couple of direct contacts at the DCC transport team so if you would like their email addresses please do feel free to PM me and I shall pass these on.

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

Had this exact experience just yesterday returning from work at Epsom Downs Racecourse...

Got to the bus stop and waited for the 19:36 Metrobus service 460 into Epsom, kept an eye on its location using the bustimes.org tracker (bearing in mind the bus was already almost 10 minutes late).

As soon as the tracker showed the bus was one stop away, I put my phone away, got my ticket out and, to my absolute horror, saw the bus flying around the roundabout at the top of the road and taking the wrong exit.

Despite the traffic, I don't believe there was a diversion of any sort as the next bus (which I had to wait well over half an hour for) thankfully did actually turn up!

Attached is the tracking map for said service.

 

[AY1975]

Sorry to hear about this rather poor experience you have had locally to me. I have a couple of direct contacts at the DCC transport team so if you would like their email addresses please do feel free to PM me and I shall pass these on.

Thanks, I've just sent an email to the Derbyshire County Council public transport department's general email address. I will let you know if I don't hear back from them.

As someone suggested in my thread on Littles Travel linked in entry #1 above, if I don't get a satisfactory response from DCC it may be worth escalating the matter to the Traffic Commissioners.

 

[Andy Pacer]

I’ve noticed GPS wandering on the data too, I’ve been driving stuff and know Where I’ve been, and the trace has shown me crossing fields or on parallel roads.

Me too. I think sometimes if there are few or no stops between points (or the stops haven't been picked up properly in the TransXchange file) the trace will take the most direct route between two points, although this would be on the tracking map after the event, rather than the actual bus tracking "live" as it were.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

bustimes.org only records the GPS coordinates reported by the ticket machine on the vehicle (the little black arrows), then draws a line between the points recorded

 

[AB93]

Had this exact experience just yesterday returning from work at Epsom Downs Racecourse...

Got to the bus stop and waited for the 19:36 Metrobus service 460 into Epsom, kept an eye on its location using the bustimes.org tracker (bearing in mind the bus was already almost 10 minutes late).

As soon as the tracker showed the bus was one stop away, I put my phone away, got my ticket out and, to my absolute horror, saw the bus flying around the roundabout at the top of the road and taking the wrong exit.

Despite the traffic, I don't believe there was a diversion of any sort as the next bus (which I had to wait well over half an hour for) thankfully did actually turn up!

Attached is the tracking map for said service.

Derby Day diversion I believe.

 

[Cesarcollie]

Sorry to hear about this rather poor experience you have had locally to me. I have a couple of direct contacts at the DCC transport team so if you would like their email addresses please do feel free to PM me and I shall pass these on.

Local authorities aren’t generally interested in the illegal operations of their contractors. There’s a company in Essex that was running contracted services without valid O Licence discs but the local authority didn’t seem to care. They just want the cheapest price.

 

[duncombec]

Local authorities aren’t generally interested in the illegal operations of their contractors. There’s a company in Essex that was running contracted services without valid O Licence discs but the local authority didn’t seem to care. They just want the cheapest price.

Is that/could that be because it isn't actual local authorities who would pursue that, but the licensing authorities - i.e. the TC/VOSA?

It seems to be a bit like calling the Police for a civil matter: they'll just say "sorry, but until the correct authorities tell us this, we can't act"?

 

[Cesarcollie]

Is that/could that be because it isn't actual local authorities who would pursue that, but the licensing authorities - i.e. the TC/VOSA?

It seems to be a bit like calling the Police for a civil matter: they'll just say "sorry, but until the correct authorities tell us this, we can't act"?

I might agree save for the fact that compliance with the relevant legislation is a contract T & C, so the operator in this case is in breach of their contract. It is therefore very much a matter for the LA.

 

[pjnathanail]

Local authorities aren’t generally interested in the illegal operations of their contractors. There’s a company in Essex that was running contracted services without valid O Licence discs but the local authority didn’t seem to care. They just want the cheapest price.

I think it depends on the Local Authority, and the staff they have in post at the time. Was the Essex CC issue recent?

Local authority transport departments have changed a lot - for better and worse over the past 14 years since 2008. Officers are often wearing multiple hats due to staff cutbacks, but the reduction in the volume of tendered work has caused many smaller less reputable operators to leave the market, so those that are left tend to work to a higher standard.

Contactless ticketing, BODS and PSVAR also contributing towards the same.

Notwithstanding all that, there’ll always be somebody out there running a bargain basement cowboy operation - one only needs to look at the Traffic Commissioner’s public inquiry records to see that!

 

[GusB]

We're well away from the original thread topic now, and the issues raised in the original post have been addressed.

I'll bring this one to a close, but if anyone wishes to continue discussing local authority transport departments, feel free to do so in a separate thread.