Live bus departure screens

[To the trains]

Why do those screens at bus stops lie through their teeth? They will tell you that the bus is coming in 2 minutes, and the next moment pouf! It's disappeared from the screen without a trace! I think it's deliberately to keep your hopes up, of course they know that the bus isn't coming 2 minutes before it's supposed to arrive, they have live tracking on the app after all. They still say the bus is in 2 minutes when it's nowhere on the app, which tells you where exactly the bus is, and other times, the bus appears on the map and moves along, but never comes. Does anyone with the inside scoop have any insights? Is my theory about deliberately trying to keep your hopes up correct or am I missing something? If the bus isn't coming, I'd much rather just know

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Why do those screens at bus stops lie through their teeth? They will tell you that the bus is coming in 2 minutes, and the next moment pouf! It's disappeared from the screen without a trace! I think it's deliberately to keep your hopes up, of course they know that the bus isn't coming 2 minutes before it's supposed to arrive, they have live tracking on the app after all. They still say the bus is in 2 minutes when it's nowhere on the app, which tells you where exactly the bus is, and other times, the bus appears on the map and moves along, but never comes. Does anyone with the inside scoop have any insights? Is my theory about deliberately trying to keep your hopes up correct or am I missing something? If the bus isn't coming, I'd much rather just know

Depends as to whether it is Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) or if it is simply counting down against theoretical timetables.

 

[route101]

Perhaps it's using data from the previous day's services. With First Glasgow it's a real bus if it shows the number of seats on the tracker.

 

[computerSaysNo]

If the company were advertising buses as running when they knew there was a 0% chance of them turning up (e.g. if a route was withdrawn but they deliberately left the previous timetable running on the live departure screens), then I think that would be in breach of advertising law? ie false advertising, advertising a service which doesn't exist etc.
But it would have to be proven that you were doing it on purpose to mislead the public I would think.
On standard departure boards the setup is probably that the computer assumes all services are running unless told otherwise (and that if a service isn't reporting itself over the live tracker that it's a tracker fault, rather than the service not running), and the companies will probably say that they don't have enough staff to go through the system and remove all the non-operating journeys every day.

 

[jon0844]

Why do those screens at bus stops lie through their teeth? They will tell you that the bus is coming in 2 minutes, and the next moment pouf! It's disappeared from the screen without a trace!

If that happens, it's just working from the timetable and has no tracking.

Even if there is live data, it doesn't always mean apps or bus stop screens are successfully getting it. It's nowhere near as reliable as the railway.

 

[Busaholic]

I don't think this sort of thing would be covered by advertising law, as even if it could be argued that it was an advert, which is dubious to say the least, public adverts are not covered by contract law: without a contract, explicit or implicit, any case would fall by the wayside.

 

[43055]

Why do those screens at bus stops lie through their teeth? They will tell you that the bus is coming in 2 minutes, and the next moment pouf! It's disappeared from the screen without a trace! I think it's deliberately to keep your hopes up, of course they know that the bus isn't coming 2 minutes before it's supposed to arrive, they have live tracking on the app after all. They still say the bus is in 2 minutes when it's nowhere on the app, which tells you where exactly the bus is, and other times, the bus appears on the map and moves along, but never comes. Does anyone with the inside scoop have any insights? Is my theory about deliberately trying to keep your hopes up correct or am I missing something? If the bus isn't coming, I'd much rather just know

Generally, I find the screens in Derby to count down if the bus is tracking/running and show the departure if it is not. Could be wrong but I believe the location of the vehicles is driven from the ticket machines? I did have it the other week where the screen was counting down on a cancelled journey as the bus arrived and then parked up elsewhere so was probably tracking as if it was running.

 

[jon0844]

The buses using Ticketer machines seem to be able to report lots of information to feed apps (and council run screens), and on Uno buses here you can find out what bus it is (number, single or double decker), how busy it is, whether it has Wi-Fi/USB and more. Not that the bus stops show all that, which is why you are best advised to install apps for individual operators to track their buses (assuming Google Maps and similar can't get all the live data).

As 43055 says, the screens at bus stops either show a timetabled time or a countdown. The latter is when it knows where the bus is.

Perhaps it would be helpful to show something to warn people that some buses are only estimates and it's possible the bus isn't just late, but not running at all. I think in some cases, if there's no real-time info for a bus, it falls back to the timetable.. but if there's no real-time info then it's quite probable there's no bus! But, you can't just assume that and not bother to wait around... which is extremely frustrating on routes where buses aren't that frequent.

 

[Dai Corner]

If the company were advertising buses as running when they knew there was a 0% chance of them turning up (e.g. if a route was withdrawn but they deliberately left the previous timetable running on the live departure screens), then I think that would be in breach of advertising law? ie false advertising, advertising a service which doesn't exist etc.
But it would have to be proven that you were doing it on purpose to mislead the public I would think.
On standard departure boards the setup is probably that the computer assumes all services are running unless told otherwise (and that if a service isn't reporting itself over the live tracker that it's a tracker fault, rather than the service not running), and the companies will probably say that they don't have enough staff to go through the system and remove all the non-operating journeys every day.

The screens in Newport's bus stations, which are the responsibility of the City Council, showed withdrawn services for years and became less and less accurate as timetables changed. Apparently the company who used to maintain them went out of business (or withdrew from that type of work) and the Council didn't engage a new contractor, or even switch the signs off.

 

[Nammer]

Here in Portsmouth the bus stop screens show a countdown time (ie 2 mins) if the bus is tracking. The scheduled time is shown if the bus isn't tracking or not running. Stagecoach buses tend to show if a journey is cancelled on the screens too. I have been waiting at a stop for a bus before that was tracking/counting down until it disappeared off the screen, later found out it was because the bus took a different route due to a unscheduled diversion.

 

[markymark2000]

There isn't really any excuse for councils to still be using scheduled time anymore with Bus Open Data being so available. Sadly, many councils still hide behind 'the bus operator isn't providing us with the data' because they simply can't be bothered putting in the effort to get live tracking. How is it that bustimes.org, a free to use site, can show me the location of every single bus, show me what time the bus got to each stop and in some cases, even show delay minutes, and yet councils, whom get hundreds of thousands of pounds each year to spend on buses, are somehow still incapable of live tracking. The old excuses (however truthful they were), no longer work. Absolutely appalling.


Cancellations are harder to pick up and that is one area where bus operators and councils need to start picking up. I am sure BODs was meant to bring in some of those features, not sure if they are introduced though and if they are, how good they are.

 

[GusB]

Surely there's some scope to have a nationwide system that all operators could supply data to, rather like the one we have for the railway. Oh, silly me - that would require investment!

 

[markymark2000]

Surely there's some scope to have a nationwide system that all operators could supply data to, rather like the one we have for the railway. Oh, silly me - that would require investment!

Do you mean a single public facing website (like National Rail) or do you mean a behind the scenes database (like Trust and all that) which all of the public facing websites (National Rail, Trainline, Trainpal) use to show the data?

 

[Dai Corner]

Surely there's some scope to have a nationwide system that all operators could supply data to, rather like the one we have for the railway. Oh, silly me - that would require investment!

England have the Bus Open Data (BODS) which all operators have to update with timetables, fares and real-time location data which third parties can make available through websites or apps but unfortunately Scotland and Wales have not chosen to join in (yet?)

 

[GusB]

Do you mean a single public facing website (like National Rail) or do you mean a behind the scenes database (like Trust and all that) which all of the public facing websites (National Rail, Trainline, Trainpal) use to show the data?

I was thinking along the lines of a central database that all outlets would use, but a single website like National Rail wouldn't be a bad idea either. Why not have a National Transport website that combines all options? Okay, that's going too far... Nurse!!

England have the Bus Open Data (BODS) which all operators have to update with timetables, fares and real-time location data which third parties can make available through websites or apps but unfortunately Scotland and Wales have not chosen to join in (yet?)

I'm aware of this, but there doesn't seem to be one "official" central point for information. I'm not criticising the efforts of the people behind the likes of bustimes.org, by the way, but I do feel that these things should be properly funded.

The data is there - it just needs to be properly utilised. It's also high time that other parts of the UK required operators to publish their data too.

 

[To the trains]

Depends as to whether it is Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) or if it is simply counting down against theoretical timetables.

Well the whole point is that they use real time data, and the amount of time they say is independent of the timetable. The app also tells you where the bus physically is, but still tells these fibs

 

[WibbleWobble]

It is going to depend on what system the Real Time Information (RTI) is using. The system communicates with the bus using a SIRI-VM (Service Interface for Real-time Information - Vehicle Monitoring) feed, but may have to be fed via a third party host such as Vix.

Normally the prediction is based on a combination of where the bus is, and how the previous journeys ran in comparison to their timetable. So if the last three journeys ran late because, say, a car broke down on a junction but it had been moved and the traffic cleared when it came to the bus you're waiting for, the RTI won't know that and may suggest your bus will be running late.

On less frequent services like once-a-day routes, the prediction may be an aggregate over the past few days - I've seen this happen where the RTI screen was showing 10-15 minutes late because of roadworks on the previous days, but it was literally coming down the road!

I have seen displays count down to bus's arrival, but disappear without the bus arriving. It could be due to how the system is set up, but it shouldn't happen as the SIRI feed link should tell the display the bus hasn't passed the stop. That is unless the connection has failed and it is reverting to scheduled time.

 

[jon0844]

Couldn't they use real time traffic data to show more accurate predictions? The buses themselves helping contribute to the data accuracy also.

 

[Stan Drews]

As well as SIRI-VM feeds mentioned by @WibbleWobble there are also SIRI-SM (Stop Monitoring) feeds, which work differently. I came across this article from Passenger, which might be useful for those with an interest in this subject.

Understanding real-time passenger information feeds: the SIRI standard - Passenger

Passengers expect real-time transport information on their mobile phones. At Passenger we integrate the protocol known as Service Interface for Real Time Information (SIRI) which allows systems to exchange vehicle location and estimated time of arrivals.

passenger.tech

In the current digital landscape, everything is real-time: Email, WhatsApp, news, weather, even voting for TV shows! These days passengers expect operators to deliver applications that behave in the same way as all other their favourite mobile apps, providing up to date information at their fingertips, in real-time.

The term “real-time” can have a different meaning depending on the context. In the case of critical systems like airbag inflation, real-time means that detection of a collision and airbag deployment should occur within milliseconds. When talking about real-time passenger information systems(RTPI) however, we can safely assume that working larger time spans such as minutes is often enough.

In order to make real-time transport information compatible between different systems, several European countries joined efforts to create a standard protocol known as Service Interface for Real Time Information (SIRI). This protocol describes (at length!) how different systems can share real-time passenger information, allowing different suppliers, operators and municipalities to work together without costly development bills every time one of the party is swapped out.

At Passenger, we integrate SIRI feeds from third parties to display the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) on the departure/arrival boards within our mobile apps and provide live bus tracking on interactive route maps. There are 2 main parts of the SIRI specification that we use for this, which combine both Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) systems and ETA prediction engines.

Vehicle Monitoring (SIRI-VM) provides a vehicle-centric view of transport data.

Live bus tracking for Reading Buses
AVL systems provide the GPS coordinates where a vehicle actually is with some periodicity (e.g. approximately every 30 seconds). These require vehicles to be equipped with a GPS receiver and mobile broadband connection. The location is sent to a central server, which then provides a live feed for all vehicles. SIRI-VM can also include further information about upcoming stops, such as the vehicle’s Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA).

Providing a map with live tracking of vehicles is also possible thanks to the SIRI-VM feed. This feature is very attractive to operators for monitoring the health of their network and also to their passengers as they can take more informed decisions about their travel arrangements.

Stop Monitoring (SIRI-SM) is a feed for the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) of a vehicle to a particular stop.

Departure board in Passenger app
A SIRI-SM feed needs a prediction engine that blends AVL and other sources of information like timetables, geography and roadworks to provide an estimated time of arrival at each stop along the journey. Digital departure boards can be updated on a real-time basis, as vehicles progress along their routes.

Being an estimate, the ETA may not reflect the reality very accurately (e.g. due to unforeseen circumstances like a traffic incident), leading to the bus arriving late or sometimes early. At Passenger, we understand the frustration of missing a bus or waiting for too long at the stop, so we are currently working on better ways to display the uncertainty of the estimates.

Delivering this real-time information at high quality can sometimes be a struggle for operators but Passenger works alongside your SIRI systems to provide reliable, direct channels for this data to the people who need it. If you are interested in providing real-time information to your passengers, please get in touch.

 

[markymark2000]

England have the Bus Open Data (BODS) which all operators have to update with timetables, fares and real-time location data which third parties can make available through websites or apps but unfortunately Scotland and Wales have not chosen to join in (yet?)

Wales and Scotland won't join sadly but they are the areas which need to join. The amount of wrong information on their Traveline portals is amazing. In England, some councils tended to keep it much more up to date and if it was wrong, Traveline would sort it quickly. Traveline Wales can't amend Naptan so hundreds, if not thousands of bus stops are in the wrong place. Scotlands information is all over the place. SPT I found to be the worst area at keeping the Traveline database updated. Bus open data would go a long way to ensuring that timetables are correct.

I was thinking along the lines of a central database that all outlets would use, but a single website like National Rail wouldn't be a bad idea either. Why not have a National Transport website that combines all options? Okay, that's going too far... Nurse!!

I'm aware of this, but there doesn't seem to be one "official" central point for information. I'm not criticising the efforts of the people behind the likes of bustimes.org, by the way, but I do feel that these things should be properly funded.

The data is there - it just needs to be properly utilised. It's also high time that other parts of the UK required operators to publish their data too.

Bus Open Data is a central database. If you click the following link, it you can download ALL timetables which companies have put into BODs and where there are gaps, it fills them in with data from the Traveline database. https://data.bus-data.dft.gov.uk/timetable/download/

As for single website to give information, that was the point of Traveline but over time there were inaccuracies and some councils gave up updating the database. There were also differences in how each transport authority treated some services such as school buses, some included them, some don't (Cheshire East for example have 'open' commercial school buses which aren't on the database but Merseytravel had all of theirs on the database). Also now Traveline is an external firm with no Govt influence, there was no standards. Now with bus open data, there is a punishment for not uploading data (when the traffic commissioners can get off their behinds and enforce it) and as such, forces all bus data to be online but more importantly, be correct.

Traveline is still really pushed by councils and in many cases, is still showing on bus stop timetables including the codes for the 'nextbus' text service (which I don't think anyone ever uses). Almost everyone in Wales sends people to Traveline Cymru too for information which is a shame given how shocking the information is.



I think the issue is, Traveline has failed to innovate and make their systems updated and be user friendly and so bustimes came along with the bus tracking and that was the game changer that everyone has been calling for, for the past 5 years or so. Combine that bus tracking with timetables which are user friendly and where possible, use data from companies websites or ticket machines so the data is as reliable as possible. It's everything that Traveline should have done but hasn't so someone else has filled in that gap.

 

[Soundwave]

Surely there's some scope to have a nationwide system that all operators could supply data to, rather like the one we have for the railway. Oh, silly me - that would require investment!

It was called Transport Direct and it was shut down in 2014

 

[Tetchytyke]

It was called Transport Direct and it was shut down in 2014

Transport Direct was the very worst of government outsourcing to inept IT conglomerates, which was the problem. It was terrible and that was the programming. I used it once, it recommended a "5 minute walking route" that took me across the River Wear miles from a bridge, and I couldn't walk on water I never used it again. That's so bad it goes beyond rubbish-in-rubbish-out.

 

[noddingdonkey]

the companies will probably say that they don't have enough staff to go through the system and remove all the non-operating journeys every day.

They may well say that. I would argue that if they are cancelling a bus, the basic courtesy of making that information available at the earliest opportunity so intending passengers can mitigate the inconvenience is the absolute least they ought to be doing.

My experience is that in West Yorkshire, Metro's tracker often shows cancellations that First's app doesn't. On the flipside, the 184 service run by Oldham garage doesn't track on Metro's website or bus station displays but does on First's own.

The First app actively lies, showing timetable countdowns to cancelled services with the "live" flag. My stop is 10 minutes from the origin, I can't differentiate between a cancelled service and one that is 10 minutes late starting (not uncommon) from the data provided, which is annoying when First likely knew hours ago that the bus wouldn't run.

There are many valid reasons why a bus might not run. There are zero valid reasons not to provide accurate and timely information about cancellations. Failure to do so is just ignorarance, arrogance and utter indifference to the impact on people's plans and lives on behalf of the operator.

 

[Deerfold]

I used to work with TfL's iBus AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system and Countdown signs, including measuring their performance. They were usually very accurate (though there's a couple of odd cases where they don't predict at all. The system uses GPS and odometer and turn sensors to cope with GPS gaps. The system works out predictions, using the reported location, what happened to the last 3 buses to travel on that route, but also what usually happens at that time of that day tyoe.
It doesn't use timetables at all to produce predictions (though they're used in reporting and the system knows which trip a bus is on, so if two buses think they're on the same trip if gets confused) so if a bus doesn't run, it's not predicted. If it's broken it won't predict - but most faults are radio-related and most London drivers won't take out a bus with a broken radio.

They predict up to the next 10 services at any stop, up to 30 minutes away and are fairly accurate. Almost all buses which don't turn up have been turned short, but without the correct destination having been put in the system by the controller.

If you use the API, you can get details of all buses at a stop up to 30 minutes away. Times on signs never go up, but those on the API can.

 

[WelshBluebird]

This does seem to cause a lot of confusion and misinformation for some reason. Just a few days ago the Bristol Post ran an article about how some of the live tracking in the First app isn't actually live, but the OTT headline has caused people to respond in a similarly OTT way and accuse First of lying, deliberating misleading people and some claims of fraud.

When the reality is much much simpler - at least in Bristol the way it seems to work is for services that have live data this is shown (both on the map and as a countdown to when it should get to your location based on where it is now and how long the it thinks it should take to get from there to you), for services that don't have live data then than an estimate countdown based just on the timetable is given.

A bus could be lacking live data for a few reasons though, sometimes the live data just isn't reporting, sometimes the system on the bus hasn't been set up right for the route and journey, sometimes the bus hasn't started its journey yet (especially true if you are at a bus stop close to the origin), sometimes the bus has actually been cancelled etc etc so to simply not show a bus that doesn't have live data isn't really the answer.

First absolutely should be clearer in the app and label services without live tracking as "estimated" or similar though, and that they should be more on the ball when it comes to marking services as cancelled where they are cancelled in advance, but they certainly aren't actively trying to lie or commit fraud etc etc.

The First app actively lies, showing timetable countdowns to cancelled services with the "live" flag. My stop is 10 minutes from the origin, I can't differentiate between a cancelled service and one that is 10 minutes late starting (not uncommon) from the data provided, which is annoying when First likely knew hours ago that the bus wouldn't run.

As above basically.
If you want a better idea, bustimes.org can help as you can tracking the incoming bus on its way to the origin for your journey. But that still won't help for short notice cancellations (which are actually the most I see, rather than ones decided hours ago).

 

[jon0844]

When I am travelling, I often use Google Maps for directions and route planning (as it can cover walking, cycling, public transport and taxis etc).

I find bus tracking to be very hit and miss and more often than not Google isn't getting live tracking data, so if you see an itinerary for buses you often need to see the operator and then jump to the Stagecoach, Arriva or whatever app to track it. If you're changing bus, that can really mess up planning - especially in rural areas where buses aren't particularly frequent.

On my last trip to Kent, I gave up after the first bus and got a taxi.

There's still so much work to be done. Bustimes.org is a great site, but it shouldn't be the only way to get good information - especially when route planning.

 

[noddingdonkey]

This does seem to cause a lot of confusion and misinformation for some reason. Just a few days ago the Bristol Post ran an article about how some of the live tracking in the First app isn't actually live, but the OTT headline has caused people to respond in a similarly OTT way and accuse First of lying, deliberating misleading people and some claims of fraud.

When the reality is much much simpler - at least in Bristol the way it seems to work is for services that have live data this is shown (both on the map and as a countdown to when it should get to your location based on where it is now and how long the it thinks it should take to get from there to you), for services that don't have live data then than an estimate countdown based just on the timetable is given.

A bus could be lacking live data for a few reasons though, sometimes the live data just isn't reporting, sometimes the system on the bus hasn't been set up right for the route and journey, sometimes the bus hasn't started its journey yet (especially true if you are at a bus stop close to the origin), sometimes the bus has actually been cancelled etc etc so to simply not show a bus that doesn't have live data isn't really the answer.

First absolutely should be clearer in the app and label services without live tracking as "estimated" or similar though, and that they should be more on the ball when it comes to marking services as cancelled where they are cancelled in advance, but they certainly aren't actively trying to lie or commit fraud etc etc.

As above basically.
If you want a better idea, bustimes.org can help as you can tracking the incoming bus on its way to the origin for your journey. But that still won't help for short notice cancellations (which are actually the most I see, rather than ones decided hours ago).

Alternatively First should provide an app that is fit for purpose.

A real life example (screenshot displaying details of bus due in 8 minutes with "LIVE" indicator, 74 seats and one wheelchair bay free)

That bus was cancelled. You can debate whether it's deliberate, negligent, fraudulent etc, but to state that this is live data when the bus is cancelled is certainly misleading and certainly unacceptable.


(Edit: I think this might be the wrong screenshot, but the point about the LIVE indicator showing when buses are cancelled is definitely something I have seen many times)

 

[Tetchytyke]

I find bus tracking to be very hit and miss and more often than not Google isn't getting live tracking data

Google is terrible, IME it doesn't show live tracking data even when it is available.

I've been in Manchester this week, and on Metrolink there's a temporary timetable at Piccaddily Gardens due to broken points. Citymapper showed the revisions and the tracking accurately, Google did not. So the issue isn't the data feed, it's Google, but we know the operator will get the flack.

 

[londonbridge]

There’s a few times recently where I’ve been waiting for a bus and the countdown screen has been wrong (this is in TFL land btw), in one example it turned up when according to the display it was the fourth bus due and wasn’t due for 8 minutes.

In another instance I was using the app on my phone, bus was showing as on time, reached the scheduled time and didn’t show up, the app changed from “due” to 29 mins, then it turned up ten minutes later whilst the app was still showing 20 mins.

 

[ElBoiii]

Some Sheffield bus stops have departure screens and they ALWAYS freeze at "2min" before immediately changing to "Due".
(edited to remove potentially false info)