ELECTRONIC timetables are to finally begin telling passengers when their bus will arrive -- nearly five years after the equipment was installed.

Council bosses have agreed a pilot scheme on routes to the Sunnybower area of Blackburn and the Boulevard bus station.

It is likely the electronic timetables will then be rolled out along the A666 into Bolton.

And the displays which have been hanging at Boulevard bus stops may now be replaced with more modern equipment, even though they worked for only two weeks after being installed five years ago.

The timetables will give 'real time information' on when the next bus is due, using satellite technology to work out journey times based on traffic flows.

Blackburn was one of the first areas in the country to have Real Time Information in 1998, months before the borough became a unitary authority.

Lancashire County Council trialled the technology on several routes, but the project was beset with problems.

For the past four years the displays installed at Blackburn Boulevard station have flashed up just the words: "This service is brought to you by Lancashire County Council."

The county council has now secured £250,000 of government money to run an updated scheme throughout Preston and South Ribble, with the aim of rolling it out across Lancashire.

Today, Adam Scott, director of regeneration at Blackburn with Darwen Council, revealed that the council would soon be running its own scheme, funded through Government transport cash.

He said: "Work on a pilot scheme in the Sunnybower area is due to start in the next few weeks. We are also in talks with a neighbouring authority and bus company about introducing a scheme on the A666 route through Darwen to Blackburn."

The bus information schemes work by placing beacons on bus routes which are connected to a central computer.

When a bus passes a sensor or beacon, it alerts the computer which works out how long it will be until the bus arrives at the next stop. Information is then beamed to a screen at that stop.

Coun Paul Browne, leader of the Lib Dems in Blackburn, said: "It is about time that this has happened. We have had to put up with a useless system while people learnt from its mistakes and installed new systems elsewhere.

"I have always wondered why Lancashire County Council put the scheme in Blackburn months before we separated from them. We got lumbered with technology which did not work."