Every day, we help millions of people to make journeys across London: By Tube, bus, tram, car, bike – and more. People don’t associate us with journeys by river, on foot or via the air, but we help with that, too. Getting people to where they need to go has been our business for over 100 years, and it shows. We’re leaders in our field, and no other city’s transport system is quite as recognisable: Red buses, black taxis, Tube trains and roundels have become icons in their own right.
Our main job is to keep the city moving, working and growing but to do that, we have to listen. Constant improvements across the network are fuelled by feedback and comments from customers, as well as work within communities, representative groups, businesses and other London transport stakeholders.
But our progress also depends on technology and data. With the future at our fingertips, we’ve already used it to revolutionise travel payments (think Oyster and contactless payment cards), and improved travel information. Tech and data is essential, not just to our future, but to others’: third parties use our data to power apps and services vital to customer journeys.
So what’s next? As well as continuing to deliver Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan’s strategy and commitments on transport, our programme of capital investments is still one of the largest. We launched the Elizabeth line, we’re modernising services and stations and making travel safer for all.
Big Bus Tours is the world’s largest operator of open-top sightseeing tours, inspiring the spirit of adventure in 25+ world-famous cities across four continents. Beginning its journey with a fleet of only three buses, Big Bus Tours has swiftly expanded to a global fleet of hundreds of open-top buses, turning millions of tourists into explorers, every year. With a sightseeing concept designed to provide a flexible approach to city discovery, each open-top bus tour provides a hop-on, hop-off facility at a variety of interesting locations, with complimentary additions to enhance the visitor sightseeing experience. In February 2015, private equity firm Exponent purchased Big Bus Tours, with a shared vision to make Big Bus Tours the number 1 thing to do in each world-famous city. In 2016, Merlin Entertainments PLC became a shareholder, offering a natural synergy with Big Bus Tours and Merlin attractions and experiences around the world. With entertaining audio guides and knowledge of the latest events in each city, the Big Bus experience leaves every passenger with a story to tell. A perfect city companion, The Big Bus Tours app includes tour highlights, city guides and map and real-time bus tracking, downloadable in the Apple and Android App stores. The Big Bus Tours Group is a leader in sightseeing experiences, constantly expanding its global network with the addition of new cities and acquisitions, including Tower Tours and Tour Dubai.
For more information log onto the Big Bus Tours website www.bigbustours.com.
Context is a network of scholars and specialists whose aim is to invite travelers off the tourist track and into the real life of the people, history, and culture of the world's greatest cities.
While over 80% of our guides have MA or PhD-level degrees in their fields of expertise, we live by the rule that learning isn't a finite activity. We're inquisitive about the places and people around us. We're inspired by conversations ripe with new perspectives and oft-untold stories. We don't play loose with the facts. Ours is the intellectual seeker's approach to the world: both in life and in work, we thrill at the potent possibility of "yet".
At day's end—we believe that travel is the ultimate form of education, one best served with a heaping side of meaningful interaction and memorable conversation.
Curiosity is Key... and that's been true since the beginning. Context was founded in 2003 by Paul Bennett and Lani Bevacqua, a husband and wife who landed in Rome after over two years spent sailing across the Atlantic.
Once in Rome, Paul and Lani fell in with an eclectic group of professors and specialists—architects, native Romans, researchers, writers, archaeologists—and formed Context as a means to connect those experts with travelers yearning for an in-depth understanding of the city.
Now, 20-plus years and over 250,000 tours later, we've grown from a single-city operation to a group of scholars, nerds, and curious travelers spanning over 60 cities across 6 continents. (Someone once called us "affable weirdos," which may be the nicest compliment we've gotten, ever). Just about the only thing that hasn't changed is our passion for ideas and sharing knowledge.