OK, this is a good example of a deceptive image. Or perhaps it isn't. Bath bus station at eleven minutes past five yesterday afternoon. The deception is that the image doesn't show what was behind the camera - the eastern half of the bus station wasn't empty of passengers (though it wasn't exactly heaving). The western half of the building hosts the stands used by Faresaver, Flixbus, National Express, First's Number 8 service (an every forty minutes or so Optare that heads into the southern suburbs, useful for the Two Tunnels route) Lastly the five or so times a day council supported minibus that serves a number of areas that would otherwise miss out - but this last service also misses out the segment of the route that runs to and from from the bus station sufficiently often that passengers for it have dried up.

Most of this vacant appearance is the result of the Manvers Street closure but it would have been really good to see three things:

* During the Manvers Street closure, some sort of additional provision for passengers needing to travel across the city.

* Quality information provision at the bus station. The screens themselves when in use are pretty terrible in design, but switching them off completely is a naff approach. There is now, months after the start of the disruption, an A2 written notice but it would be embarrassing to sling a photo of it here.

* Plans for a formal relaunch of the bus service once the Manvers Street works conclude. Those works will immediately be followed by three weeks or so of Christmas Market road closures, which while it brings additional passengers, itself disrupts bus routes.

I've no idea why this is all so bad or where the aspiration is. The current prime minister visited First's bus depot here. Our local MP, on social media, has just pushed 'National Catch the Bus Month'. WECA's response to various things seems to be that decisions are commercial and there's nothing they can do. Without the bus fare cap and concessionary passes, the passenger numbers would be bleeding away faster than they are - and the concessionary pass aspect leaves the passenger with no mechanism to pressurise the providers into providing services that are actually useful.

I'd love to spend a couple of hours on the buses with the PM or local MP and they could experience that even when it's not bludgeoned by road congestion, how the public transport here is often set up to fail.