Edinburgh council sorry over confusing bus times

Lothian Buses carry more than two million passengers every week in Edinburgh

City of Edinburgh Council has been accused of causing "concern and confusion" among bus passengers with its new live waiting time screens.

The LED screens, at bus stops around the city, are supposed to show live, accurate waiting times for upcoming buses but currently they only show the timetable information for Lothian Buses, the city's largest bus operator.

Lothian Bus passengers will have to wait until early 2024 before the screens show accurate information about how far away a bus actually is.

Councillor Scott Arthur, the city's transport and environment convener, said he was "sorry for the inconvenience".

The new LED screens don't say that bus times aren't based on location data yet

Edinburgh residents have complained on social media about "ghost buses", where services are shown on the display boards but never actually arrive because the scheduled bus was cancelled.

The council said it was working closely with Lothian Buses as the operator adds new GPS trackers able to communicate with the new system.

Mr Arthur, a Labour councillor, said all live bus and tram times (including Lothian Buses) were available on the Transport for Edinburgh app,

The council approved the £2.9m project to upgrade the display screens four years ago and so far 190 out of 330 old bus trackers have been replaced with new LED screens.

The project was delayed by two years by Covid and Brexit, according to the council.

Mr Arthur said they expected the new screens to display live Lothian bus times from early 2024.

'Made it worse'

Edinburgh residents expressed their frustrations on X, formally known as Twitter, after Mr Arthur posted about the issue.

One resident replied "What a shocking implementation! Nowhere does it tell you that the info is either real time or timetable.

"Bravo - we upgraded the system and made it worse," they continued.

Another said: "I do think the new screens are more readable and will be a big improvement but perhaps the council should have said they were in testing until they had real time info."

Mr Arthur replied: "I 100% agree that's not been clear."

Live data

Lothian Buses carry more than two million passengers every week in Edinburgh, according to Mr Arthur.

Edinburgh Bus Users Group (EBUG) said if the local authority “can’t be bothered” to make clear that some bus times are not from live data then residents will stop trusting the new system.

Councillor Marie-Clair Munro said she had been “inundated” with messages from fed-up constituents.

She said: “A lot of residents have said ‘if I want a timetable, I’ll look at the bus shelter’.

“Surely the trackers should be in real time, otherwise they’re just online schedules."

Ms Munro, a Conservative councillor, is presenting a motion to the council's transport committee to highlight “concern and confusion to residents who rely on buses to get to school, work and appointments".

“At the end of the day the taxpayer is paying for this, and when you pay for something, you want it to work," she said.

"I understand there might be teething problems but it comes to a point when the public are now saying ‘we’ve understood there’s delays, it’s costing a lot of money – we just want it to work in real time’.”