'Ghost buses' leave Leeds passengers infuriated - and West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin says it keeps her awake at night

Tracy Brabin was referring to the increasingly common problem of buses that are scheduled to arrive and may even be listed as being minutes away on bus stop timetables, but never appear. Her comments came in a meeting when West Yorkshire Combined Authority was voting on whether to move ahead with a plan to make real-time bus information across the region more reliable.

Ms Brabin, a regular bus user herself, has pledged to improve bus services since she took on the role of West Yorkshire’s first elected mayor in 2021. She has introduced ‘Mayor’s fares’ that single journeys at £2 and begun plans to bring bus services into public ownership – something which could take years. But many bus services have remained unreliable, with complaints of buses cancelled at the last minute.

During a meeting of the Combined Authority earlier this month, members discussed a £615,000 IT upgrade that would improve the current system. A report said the new system “will encourage the increased use of public transport for education, employment and leisure activities, by providing people with improved journey information, for example real time travel updates.”

Leeds councillor Stewart Golton (Lib Dem) said: “The Mayor has made considerable efforts to try to improve bus patronage in West Yorkshire. However, we all know how erratic bus services have been of late. We need car users to be confident that if they make the switch to buses they will get to work on time. Real-time bus information is key to providing that confidence – and that clearly isn’t there at the moment. We’ve all heard the discussions about ghost buses.”

Coun Golton was told this new system was a major step in improving the current system.

Ms Brabin said: “This keeps me awake at night – these darn ghost buses. I’m in a privileged position when I’m at a bus stop as I can see that a bus hasn’t come. I hear about members of the public going to bus companies saying that a bus didn’t come, and the companies saying ‘no, it’s on our schedule – it was there.’

“In my privileged position I can say ‘I was at that bus stop, and it didn’t come.’ I will do everything I can to make buses more reliable.”

Earlier this year, scientist Dr Ben Hanson got so sick of buses in Leeds not turning up when they should that he began collecting data from two busy city lines as a personal project. A researcher at the University of Leeds, he found that the digital arrival times displayed at bus stops are wildly inaccurate.

His research found that when the buses get closer to their stops, the expected arrival times displayed actually become less accurate. He said this was the case regardless of traffic flow or any other external factors.

He urged those in charge to take action to improve the reliability of the information displayed, saying: “Doing this could only be a benefit to everyone involved. Customers would be able to accurately predict buses and plan their day around it, and bus companies, as they would reduce their negative press and their drivers would be treated better.”