New bus trackers

[Mike LParticipant]

Some of you might have noticed the new bus trackers that are going up around the city (for example, there are two which have just been installed in Marchmont Road).

They are a big improvement over the old design. The text is much clearer; the services are shown in chronological order, which is easier to assimilate; for each service, a list of intermediate stopping points is shown; and all the services appear together on the same screen, so no need to wait for two or more consecutive screens to see the one you want. I also note that there is a column headed “Operator” which suggests that non-Lothian services are also supported.

A very welcome improvement.

Mike

 

[Mike LParticipant]

I might have spoken too soon in my enthusiasm for the new trackers. I’ve noticed several times that the timings are inaccurate. Typically, they show a bus several minutes away, but then that suddenly that changes to 20 minutes or more; then, a few minutes later, the bus actually arrives.

I’m not the only one to have noticed this. There have apparently been several complaints to the council about it. According to some news reports (including on the BBC site yesterday), it is caused by a bug in the system. As a result, the trackers are showing times as per the timetable rather than the actual times. In other words, they are simply duplicating the information on the printed timetables posted at bus stops, which defeats the object of real-tracking.

The council have apologised, but say that we will have to wait until “early 2024” before Lothian Buses can add “new GPS trackers able to communicate with the new system”.

I don’t understand that. The old trackers still show the correct real-time information, as do the various bus apps and the Lothian website. I would have thought it was the same GPS system feeding the same coordinates into the same database. But I suppose that’s technology for you.

[Neil RobbKeymaster]

Edinburgh council sorry over confusing bus times
14th November 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgpq57y0lqo

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