Everything Awful All At Once: When everything goes to shit, including the bloody app

Following on from my last post, I can see now that I was being overly optimistic about the powers of the Bee Network app.

The problem, as with all technology, is that it's only as good as the information you feed it. And, lately, it seems to be being fed the data equivalent of a highly processed burger and skinny fries with negligible percentage of potatoes.

The evening commute will start well enough: The app will say that one bus is running 10 minutes late, another is on time and will arrive 5 minutes after the late one. "Right" you think, "I'll wait for the one that is running 10 minutes late." 

You wait.

And wait.

And wait.

You check the app: The bus you are waiting at the stop for is now running 20 minutes late, but the other one is now running 15 minutes late so they'll probably arrive around the same time still. No need to change bus stops then.

Then, one or both of the buses disappears off the app entirely. And neither of them appear to have arrived.

I've been experiencing a lot of evening commutes like this over the past week or so. 

To provide some context, the 385 has been consistently running at least 20 minutes late pretty much every weekday evening for at least a fortnight now. Sometimes it's been over 30 minutes late. By which time it's disappeared off the app and you don't have a clue whether it's still coming or not.

It failed to arrive this morning as well, meaning that I was late for work because I had to get the 358 and double back on myself. 

To top it all, the 383 has also been running at least 10 minutes late most nights for at least a fortnight as well. And there's been similar problems tracking that on the app.

Other problems with the app include the following:

• It gets confused as to which side of the road you're on.
• If you're in a busy area with several bus stops (such as Stockport College) it gets confused about which stop you're at and floods you with too many stops and buses, making for a lot of scrolling before you can find the right info.
• If the bus you're waiting for is late, it doesn't show the late bus at the top of the page but the next one that's due on the timetable instead, meaning you have to scroll down to find it.

The fact that it removes late buses that are actually still coming from the app is the worst though.

Over the past week there has been flooding and horrendous gridlock so it's not surprising that services have been running late. I also think that timetables need adjusting to account for the reality of gridlock on Marple Road, but I daresay that will never happen.

Friends travelling around other bits of Stockport have been experiencing similar issues with their own buses and also with the app, suggesting wider issues with the Bee Network itself. 

As for myself, I feel it is time for the return of the Super Stop.