A SCHEME to get more people on the buses using text messaging has not gone down as well as hoped.

The £10,000 scheme the largest of its kind in the country was launched by Swindon council and the town's bus operators last October.

It allows bus users to find out the times of the next three scheduled buses from any stop in the borough by using text messaging from their mobile phone.

Currently, the service is getting about 100 to 150 hits a week, less than what was hoped by council officials but average compared to similar schemes running elsewhere in the UK.

A council spokesman said: "We will be raising the profile of the service with some more publicity soon.

"While we had hoped for a higher usage, it is important to remember this is a forerunner to the ultimate goal of introducing a real time service.

"The council is in the process of exploring a timescale for this introduction."

The scheme was aimed at allowing people to use the bus at the spur of the moment rather than use their car.

Bus use in Swindon is growing at about five per cent a year. In 2003-4 there were 10.4 million passenger journeys in the town.