Team work, tours and sustainable travel for Tootbus

How do you stand out in the crowded London open-top bus sightseeing market? With a focus on sustainable travel, combined with a 72-year heritage in the Capital, Tootbus is moving in the right direction

The story of the London open-top bus sightseeing market is a story of fierce competition, occasional battles for bus stop supremacy and what has sometimes seemed like an ever revolving carousel of brands and operators, all juggling for the lucrative tourist pound.

Today, there are four main operators: Tootbus, Big Bus Tours, City Sightseeing and Golden Tours, with other operators delivering specialist tours.

Big Bus Tours and Golden Tours are both brand and operator. City Sightseeing is the franchised operation, in this instance a partnership between Stagecoach and Spanish-based operator Grupo Julià.

But if any of the big four are to lay claim to being the original tour, well, it’s Tootbus. Owned by Paris-based RATP Dev, Tootbus is the public-facing brand of The Original London Sightseeing Tour Ltd. The business can trace its roots back 1951 and to the original sightseeing tour operated by London Transport as part of the Festival of Britain.

RATP Dev acquired the company from then owner Arriva in 2014. The public-facing branding continued as ‘The Original Tour’. A secondary brand, ‘Extrapolitan’ started appearing on buses in London and across the portfolio of RATP Dev’s worldwide sightseeing operations. This was primarily a B2B initiative aimed at making it easy for tour operators and travel agents to sell a singly sightseeing product regardless of local branding.

In May 2021, a global rebrand by RATP Dev saw The Original Tour become Tootbus. However, the importance placed on the London operation by RATP Dev is evident. The ‘TO’ of Tootbus refers to the first two initials of ‘The Original Tour’, with the ‘OT’ of Tootbus refering to the initials of the ‘Open Top’ branding of the Paris sightseeing operation ‘Le Open Tour’. Look closely at the Tootbus logo and you see a bar reaching out from the first letter O.

Today, Tootbus operates in London, Windsor, Paris and Brussels. A subsidiary company, Bath Bus Company (BBC), operates in Bath, Bristol and Cardiff, the initials conveniently recalling ‘BBC’.

In Bath, two tours are operated. The ‘City Tour’ is branded as Tootbus while the ‘Skyline Tour’ is a City Sightseeing-branded product. In Cardiff, dual branding is also present, whilst Bristol is wholly Tootbus. BBC also operates the Bath to Bristol Airport AirDecker bus service.

No preconceptions

UK Managing Director, RATP Dev Global Sightseeing, is Gavin Brooking. Based at Tootbus’ London operating base at Wandsworth Garage in south London, Gavin is new to the industry.

“I joined the business in February 2022,” he explains. “I have a 30-year career in hospitality and operations, 20 years of that as Chief Operating Officer for a family-run hospitality company. At one point I was running a travel agency and was the first online cruise consolidator.”

So what was it about heading up a sightseeing bus business that appealed to Gavin?

“I was headhunted by RATP Dev,” he says. “The team in Paris were looking for someone with no preconceptions. The business needed steering back on course and I suppose my track record looked appealing. But it was an industry I’d never thought about. As I looked closely at the market I recognised that London is different from anywhere else. It’s highly competitive and highly regulated. I relished the challenge.”

But Gavin reveals there was another, more important reason, why he took the job.

“I met with Arnaud Masson, Senior Vice President of Digital and Sightseeing, and the head of business units for global sightseeing at RATP Dev in London. I liked him immediately. I shared RATP Dev’s commitment to sustainable travel. The Paris Tootbus fleet is already 100% EV and LPG. Brussels is 100% EV. I wanted to do the job.”

Gavin explains that his parents used to run hotels in Torbay.

“I remember helping them with the washing up in a hotel in Paignton when I was 10,” he says. “Tourism and customer service has always been in my blood.”

EV prototypes and repowering

Gavin explains the scale of the UK operation.

“We have some 45 buses,” he says. “The open top double-deck fleet comprises 40 in London, three in Windsor, 11 in Bath, four in Cardiff and two in Bristol. We have an additional nine double-deck buses on our AirDecker service and two heritage Routemasters in Bath that we use for weddings and private hire.”

Gavin and RATP Dev’s commitment to sustainable travel raises questions about the age profile of some of the fleet operating in London.

“Our vehicle policy is moving towards a fully zero emission fleet by 2030,” he says. “By 1 July we will have four electric vehicles operating in London: one prototype and one repowered vehicle from manufacturer UNVI; and one prototype and one repowered vehicle from Magtec, the South Yorkshire-based manufacturer and integrator of drive systems for electric and hybrid vehicles.

For over a year the other vehicles in the London fleet have been running on HVO, a second-generation biofuel, also known as an advanced biofuel or renewable diesel, made from vegetable oils or animal fats.

“Of our entire fleet, half of them, the East Lancs-bodied variants, are being repowered. The other half are older vehicles and we are investing in new vehicles to replace them. In terms of the drivetrain, we’re currently deciding which route to follow. Repowering is around half the price of buying new, say up to £250,000 instead of around £500,000. But demand for new EVs means that putting an order in now means we probably won’t see the vehicles until 2025 at the earliest.

“Our buying policy is for UK manufacturers, so ADL or Wrightbus. It’s the reason we’re partnering with Magtec in Rotherham. RATP Dev is happy for us to source buses locally.”

Weight challenge in Bath

In Bath, BBC Managing Director Derek White, who has been heading up the business since the start of 2021, brings many years’ experience of operating buses in a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

“I was Area Manager for First Bus in the 1990s which then operated the Guide Friday open top tours of Bath,” he explains. “BBC was acquired by RATP Dev in 2011. We have 11 open-top double-deckers in Bath, all of which are currently diesel powered. The introduction of the Bath Clean Air Zone (CAZ) in March 2021 meant we had to upgrade all the fleet. But now we face a new challenge. Bath would be the ideal location for a fully EV fleet, but the weight of the batteries puts a vehicle over the city’s 18 tonnes weight limit! We are working closely with Bath City Council and the West of England Combined Authority. All our vehicles are Euro VI so we have full CAZ compliance.”

Derek notes that passenger numbers in Bath have now returned after the pandemic.

“The figures are really encouraging,” he says. “They’re now at pre-2019 levels, if not more. In Bristol there’s always been a tour, but the city doesn’t have an international market in the way that Bath does. Our focus then is on domestic visitors. We’re part of Visit West, the regional tourism organisation who we work closely with to promote our tours to local businesses, attractions and tourists. We only launched the Tootbus brand in 2021 but we’re already seeing positive growth.

“In Cardiff the focus is also on regional tourism. The city’s Principality Stadium and the events that take place there have put Cardiff more on the map. One of our biggest challenges is that the location of the stadium, in the heart of the city, means that roads have to be closed when an event is taking place. As a result we often have to suspend tours.”

Derek explains that in Cardiff the four vehicles in the fleet are based at Cardiff Bus’ depot in the city.

“Our Bath and Bristol operations, including our AirDecker service, are based out of a depot near Keynsham, just off the A4 between Bath and Bristol. The AirDecker service is a regular bus service that picks up at all stops between Bath and Bristol Airport. It’s also the only bus service linking Bath and Keynsham. We’re involved with airport travel schemes as well as our tourism partnerships.”

Derek has an eye open for new business opportunities.

“We’re always watching, he says. “But I feel we’re better off doing what we do well, and doing it to a good standard.”

Two is better than one

Back in Wandsworth, Gavin Brooking highlights the way the new Tootbus app is helping the business differentiate itself from its competitors.

“The app shows where buses are and we can use it to update customers in real time about delays or route diversions,” he says. “Our commentaries, accessed through the app or the traditional headsets, use a male and female voice, not just the traditional one voice approach. We have a kids’ commentary too as well as a separate Kids’ Tour. We use Ventrata as our payment and ticketing platform and Zenbus for our vehicle tracking.”

Tootbus is engaged in a raft of other initiatives, including staff training programmes and a ticketing partnership with Eurostar.

“We have ‘Tootbus Touch’, our ongoing training programme for drivers,” says Gavin. “We carry out more training than our competitors. The customer experience is key. We also run our ‘GOAT’ Awards for our street sales representatives. GOAT stands for ‘Greatest of all Times’.

The company also plays a leading role as part of what Gavin describes as a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’, a code of conduct that brings all the sightseeing operators together for bi-monthly meetings.

But at the heart of everything is the team.

“I’m the conductor of this orchestra,” explains Gavin. “I’m not the most important person, simply the facilitator. It’s our drivers, street sales representatives, engineers and office staff, including my Director of Operations, Ben Parry, and Head of Engineering, Paul Perry, who make all this work. When I joined last year it was very much a baptism of fire. Since then I’ve learnt many things. But the most important is that at Tootbus we really do have the best team.”