BusTimes.Org

[markymark2000]

Ticketer has weekly maintenance on a Sunday evening and this almost always causes issues with tracking it's normally back on within a few hours.

 

[AndrewTaylor95]

Ticketer has weekly maintenance on a Sunday evening and this almost always causes issues with tracking it's normally back on within a few hours.

First Aberdeen is back on

 

[trei2k]

Have most of the Scottish citylink buses stopped tracking on bustimes? I went to use it this weekend and couldn't see anything.

EDIT: There is a sole 918 service near Fort William, but I can't see anything else from them.

 

[Highland050261]

Have most of the Scottish citylink buses stopped tracking on bustimes? I went to use it this weekend and couldn't see anything.

EDIT: There is a sole 918 service near Fort William, but I can't see anything else from them.

Yes, they stopped after January 2025 when they changed their ticket machines from Vix to Transmach, so only their app can be used to track them now.

 

[trei2k]

I missed this - thanks very much for letting me know!

 

[jamieintercity]

Noticed in the past few days that stagecoach east Scotland vehicles based at arbroath, Blairgowrie and Perth are showing what services they are yet to do during the day

 

[sbrignall72]

Yes, they stopped after January 2025 when they changed their ticket machines from Vix to Transmach, so only their app can be used to track them now.

This must be the same for National express too

 

[borage]

This must be the same for National express too

Not quite, National Express seem to have started (since early April) filtering which services are included in their Bus Open Data AVL (automatic vehicle location) feed, to only include (more or less) ones that are registered as local bus services and therefore in scope of the legislation. Not sure why, it's a shame.

 

[Penfold@658]

Anyone know why Arriva Midlands East buses not tracking on Bustimes.org is there issue

 

[SSmith2009]

Anyone know why Arriva Midlands East buses not tracking on Bustimes.org is there issue

Several other arriva ops aren't tracking either but they're now showing live times 'X mins' instead of the time around Leicestershire

 

[cambsy]

just looked at Bustimes.org and it now seems to be showing all National Express coaches again,like Edward’s services in Wales. So it look likes the recent showing of National Express coaches issues, have been resolved which good news.

 

[Simon75]

How come bustimes.org shows some 'closed' services ie school or works , but not others?

 

[Leedsbusman]

How come bustimes.org shows some 'closed' services ie school or works , but not others?

Because some of them are published and some of them aren’t. An operator which only runs closed schools probably won’t bother to publish them, larger operators may.

 

[Simon75]

Where do you find the depot field ?

 

[43055]

Where do you find the depot field ?

It only shows in landscape on the fleet list page and is auto filled by what route the vehicle is tracking on.

 

[geoffk]

I wondered about the geographical coverage of bustimes.org. Recently I used it to track buses in Dublin and it appears to cover all of Ireland, north and south. I also found details of bus fleets in Jersey and Guernsey but no tracking apparently. Information for the Isle of Man is incomplete.

 

[43055]

I wondered about the geographical coverage of bustimes.org. Recently I used it to track buses in Dublin and it appears to cover all of Ireland, north and south. I also found details of bus fleets in Jersey and Guernsey but no tracking apparently. Information for the Isle of Man is incomplete.

Having been on holiday to Jersey they do track but as no timetables loaded in you have to use the map with all the buses shown.

 

[TheSel]

Just a little oddity I've noticed.

In the 'Search' screen of the 'Home' page, you can type a fleetnumber, and it will find buses with that fleet number. Screen shots below by way of example with fleet number '1234' selected. But it doesn't work for fleetnumbers starting with letters - e.g. E101 in the National Express Coventry fleet. Bug? Feature? Not mega-important, but a 'nice to have'.

 

[Aethonatic]

Just a little oddity I've noticed.

In the 'Search' screen of the 'Home' page, you can type a fleetnumber, and it will find buses with that fleet number. Screen shots below by way of example with fleet number '1234' selected. But it doesn't work for fleetnumbers starting with letters - e.g. E101 in the National Express Coventry fleet. Bug? Feature? Not mega-important, but a 'nice to have'.

View attachment 185949

View attachment 185950

This doesn't always work, at least, not with three digit numbers.

 

[Class 466]

Just a little oddity I've noticed.

In the 'Search' screen of the 'Home' page, you can type a fleetnumber, and it will find buses with that fleet number. Screen shots below by way of example with fleet number '1234' selected. But it doesn't work for fleetnumbers starting with letters - e.g. E101 in the National Express Coventry fleet. Bug? Feature? Not mega-important, but a 'nice to have'.

View attachment 185949

View attachment 185950

Been a feature for years that.

 

[markymark2000]

Where do you find the depot field ?

Just to add to what 43055 has said. It's worth noting that the depot field isn't included for most operators as they don't share such information in their open data. The depot field also isn't shown if all of the routes/vehicles have the same depot information. As such it only shows on probably around 10% of operators.

I wondered about the geographical coverage of bustimes.org. Recently I used it to track buses in Dublin and it appears to cover all of Ireland, north and south. I also found details of bus fleets in Jersey and Guernsey but no tracking apparently. Information for the Isle of Man is incomplete.

Jersey and Guernsey have APIs for their tracking, but do not share any feed for data people to get timetables. I believe this is something that Guernsey was going to look at as part of the Stagecoach contract but backed down and said there is to much other stuff going on. Jersey Govt & LibertyBus just didn't respond when someone I know asked for such timetable data to be made more publicly available.

Isle of Man transport data is a mess as the IOM Govt and Bus Vannin likes to live in the stone ages. They think everyone works off timetable leaflets and anyone who goes online to plan journeys is just an alien to them (same reason IOM transport doesn't appear on google maps).
Traveline were sorting IOM data but this never filtered through to Google Maps and seemed to be limited in where it was being shown (At one point I believe it was just web scraping and copying information from the PDF timetables). Due to data issues at Bus Vannin, apparently this is no longer happening though data is unavailable (https://www.traveline.info/2025/07/04/isleofman/). Bustimes only had IOM data as it was importing whatever Traveline was sending.

This doesn't always work, at least, not with three digit numbers.

Essentially the search currently searches a LOT from one little box and that can return a lot of results and to include 3 or 2 digit fleet numbers would return a heck of a lot of results. In the end, probably too many results because it would return route numbers, and loads of fleet numbers.

 

[Tramfan]

Pretty sure even 4 digit fleet numbers didn't work until fairly recently

 

[swinny1990]

How come national express coaches are not tracking on bus times

 

[AndyHudds]

I use it most days and it's sn excellent resource although a bit hit and miss at times. Up here in West Yorkshire SouthPennine Community Buses don't track which is a bit awkward at times given I live in one of their routes, the 341 to Stocksmoor, although to be fair, it is pretty good and rarely misses or considerably late for that matter.

 

[Highland050261]

I wondered about the geographical coverage of bustimes.org. Recently I used it to track buses in Dublin and it appears to cover all of Ireland, north and south. I also found details of bus fleets in Jersey and Guernsey but no tracking apparently. Information for the Isle of Man is incomplete.

Stagecoach Guernsey tracks.

 

[liamf656]

Is there any reason why Bustimes won't allow the removal of trentbarton 143 from the fleet list after its fire, despite other vehicles being removed?

 

[Trainman40083]

Is there any reason why Bustimes won't allow the removal of trentbarton 143 from the fleet list after its fire, despite other vehicles being removed?

I did wonder that. Originally I wondered if it was because someone didn't want to link a picture of a burnt out Trentbarton bus, but they did with 737 and 804.

 

[Trainman40083]

Supposedly, a photo of a burnt out bus is not conclusive evidence of a bus being withdrawn. I feel like there's an aspect of common sense that the major moderators of that site tend to lack, so I am not very surprised.

Maybe they want one of it on the back of the lorry going for scrap. But sometimes buses with fire damage do get rebuilt... Example Versa 804, after the first fire ..

 

[liamf656]

Supposedly, a photo of a burnt out bus is not conclusive evidence of a bus being withdrawn. I feel like there's an aspect of common sense that the major moderators of that site tend to lack, so I am not very surprised.

It's more the inconsistency I'm wondering, as trentbarton have had a few fires, some of which get removed from the fleetlist immediately and others which won't be

 

[markymark2000]

It's more the inconsistency I'm wondering, as trentbarton have had a few fires, some of which get removed from the fleetlist immediately and others which won't be

The rules state
"Don’t “remove from list” just because a vehicle’s been advertised for sale, was involved in an accident, or hasn’t tracked for a while."

This is often what trusted users go off when approving/disproving edits. Especially since as has been mentioned sometimes buses can be rebuilt after fires. Normally after a fire evidence comes out from staff sources in the discord saying what the plan is with the bus.

Inconsistencies happen yes but that is because there isn't a definitive guide of 17,000 pages on how to deal with each edit and there's around 50 people with permissions to approve/disprove edits. Trusted users are... Well... Trusted to make edits and approve/disprove in line with the rules and where something isn't explicitly stated, use their discretion and common sense. Where there is an inconsistency like this, it's welcome as it means trusted users can hold themselves or eachother accountable and can lead to better guidance around the rules to reduce any inconsistencies.