Graeme Moss is quite right about the largely useless, but expensive, displays at bus stops, Echo Letters Monday.


I have watched the bus stop displays from the time they were installed some four months ago and quickly realised that they showed the “scheduled” time of buses expected, not the actual time.  

In Weymouth's heavy traffic, timetables are merely an aspiration, despite our wonderfully cheerful First Bus drivers.


What happens is that the display predicts a bus in say six minutes. 


When six  minutes later no bus has materialised, that line disappears and the next time prediction comes up – another six minutes' or whatever. 


For a long while the legend “system under test” has been showing and I hoped that as the Olympics approached, this expensive toy might become a useful real time prediction, with the transponders of approaching buses being signalled to the stop, instead of parroting a theoretical timetable. 


Sadly it appears to be like the tale of the Emperor with no clothes and of little practical use to bus passengers.  


A week ago, our stop in Dorchester Road was only showing the morning Littlemoor services – no mention at all of the Dorchester and other buses.  


The final realisation that the county council's expensive displays are absolutely useless came on Veterans' Sunday, when with all buses diverted down Weymouth Way from 10am, the display at the Spa merrily predicted series of non-existent buses up to and past 11.30am!


So this is one Olympic legacy that has turned into a damp squib.


Michel Hooper-Immins, Waverley Court, Radipole, Weymouth