BUS services are set to relaunch on Glasgow's £40 million Fastlink infrastructure "within a matter of days" following a row over faulty traffic light signalling.
It comes after McGill's and Stagecoach told their drivers not to use the dedicated lanes - because they were too slow.
McGill's head of service delivery Colin Napier lambasted the "ridiculous ongoing chaos" that saw buses halted at traffic lights along the Fastlink route while cars were passing them by.
Stagecoach said the glitch meant the anticipated cuts in journey times were "not being realised".
Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) has now confirmed that bus operators will reinstate services on the Fastlink route between Glasgow city centre and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital following engineering work.
SPT’s chairman, Councillor Jim Coleman, said: “With contractors already working on making the necessary adjustments to the traffic light signals and arrangements now made to undertake bus tests following this, it was agreed that bus services should be back on the Fastlink route within a matter of days.
"As the scale of the Fastlink project coincided with the opening of the new hospital, introducing these new bus priority measures was likely to be challenging and over the past few days officers from Glasgow City Council, SPT, taking into account constructive feedback from the bus operators, have been able to define a programme of works which will resolve these issues.”
McGill’s Managing Director Ralph Roberts confirmed that works to modify the signals had commenced and expected this to be a positive outcome for operators and their passengers.
He added: “To be successful, Bus Rapid Transit schemes such as Fastlink generally require testing and adjustment to signalling priority before going into operation.
"Perhaps with the need to deliver bus services to the new hospital, testing didn’t receive the attention it should have. This is happening now, which invariably has led to disruption to services. The best news, though, is that there has been a very prompt and positive response by Glasgow City Council and SPT to the stance made by bus operators, and ultimately the most important stakeholder - our customers - will benefit from this."
A spokesman for Stagecoach said: "Positive investment in targeted bus priority measures can help improve traffic flow for all road users. We understand work has now been carried out to address the problems with the Fastlink traffic lights and we are due to take part in a test this week.
"Assuming that test is successful, we look forward to resuming use of the bus lanes as soon as possible and helping passengers benefit from quicker and more reliable journeys."
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