By Chris Gee LDRS

Transport bosses have acknowledged a 'ghost bus' problem in Greater Manchester when 'live time' systems count down the minutes until arrival only for services not to show up.

A meeting between the Bee Network Forum and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), heard about the phenomenon affecting some passengers using the network's online app to track services.

Speaking at Bury town hall, transport chiefs said greater functionality had been added to the 'live times' service on the app with bus users now able to click through to see the exact location of each service based on the driver's GPS.

During the discussion, TfGM's director for customers and growth, Fran Wilkinson acknowledged the live countdown issue for some services.

She said: "We are far from perfect. Ghost buses is one of our biggest challenges.

"It happens when even the operators don't necessarily know they are going to cancel a bus. An example is if a driver's phoned in sick who was allocated for a particular bus.

"The operator will be desperately trying to find a driver that can do it and by the time they've done that passengers are sat at the bus stop waiting. In the meantime the operator's decided the service is not going to run but they may not cancel it straight away on the system.

"In those cases it will do the countdown and say it's coming in five minutes, four minutes, two minutes and then it will disappear because the system thinks it's gone."

Stockport's buses joined the Bee Network on 5 Janary 2025 (Image - Nub News)

One user on an online forum discussing Bee Network buses, said: "It disappears from the online timetable after it says one minute away then I'll stand round for the next 15 mins and it never shows up.

"What's the point in a live time if it's not even live?" North Manor councillor John Southworth said he had received 'lots of complaints' about ghost buses.

He said: "The app shows you where the bus is supposed to be not where they actually are.

"The main road through the area where I live was closed for resurfacing but if you looked at the app the bus would still show as going up and down that road even though it had been diverted." Ms Wilkinson said that more accurate data on bus locations could now be accessed through the app.

She said: "There's a couple of different features on the app. When you first come in to see where your buses are there's a little symbol saying for example 'due in three minutes' – that's our estimated time.

"If you click into that it has a little black line which will show the exact location based on the GPS of that bus. When we first launched the app we didn't have that on, we couldn't build it in time but it was added when we launched the Bee Network in Bury, Rochdale and Oldham last year. This why we've built functionality so people can check exactly where the bus is.

"It doesn't tell you exactly when it's coming but I suppose it's based on your knowledge of 'it's down the road, it'll be here in a couple of minutes'. "The feedback we've has is that although it's not perfect in terms of being visually as good as other systems, the data is accurate.

"We're probably about 80 per cent there on the app, we did a lot of it at speed and any time we get feedback we're building it in so we can do better."

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