Big Bus Tours: Hop On, Hop Off

Review by eFreeware

Most sightseeing apps are guides. This one is tied to a fleet: it is the official companion for Big Bus Tours, the hop-on hop-off double-decker service, and its most distinctive feature is that it shows where the buses actually are. You can follow a vehicle's live position and its arrival times at each stop, which changes how you plan a day on a route. The app is free and covers more than 25 cities, with London, Paris and New York among those named.

That focus makes the audience fairly clear. It suits people who already intend to ride Big Bus, or who are deciding whether to, and want the routes, stops and tickets in one place rather than spread across a paper map, a booking site and a search engine. If your sightseeing style is walking between neighborhoods and using public transit, the app's value depends entirely on whether a Big Bus route fits your trip.

I'd treat it as a planning and riding tool rather than a general city guide. The developer says more than four million tourists explore with the company each year, which gives a sense of the scale the app is built for. The install count bears that out: over a million installs and a 4.3 average across 6,290 ratings.

Following the buses in real time

The core of the app is live tracking. You can check bus times and see the current location of the vehicles at every stop, which is the difference between waiting at a stop and knowing roughly when to head there. On a hop-on hop-off route, where the whole appeal is getting off when something interests you, that timing matters more than it would on a fixed tour.

The maps support that. Routes, stop locations, landmarks and attractions are laid out on interactive city maps, and each stop has a pin with supporting details: photographs, an address, a description, and walking directions from wherever you are. If you get off at a stop and want to know what is around it, the app is meant to answer that without a separate search.

Service alerts are part of the same picture. When the company expects changes to service, the app shows an alert, and there is a message inbox for more detail. Anyone who has arrived at a stop to find a route diverted will see why that belongs in the same tool as the live map. What I like about the arrangement is that the tracking, the stop information and the disruption notices are aimed at the same question: what do I do next.

Tickets, attractions and switching cities

Booking sits inside the app as well. Tickets for tours and attractions can be bought in the app, with several payment options. Having the purchase next to the route map is convenient for a traveler who decides on the day, though I would still check the terms of any ticket before buying, as you would with any sightseeing pass.

The attractions menu goes beyond the bus network. It lists local landmarks, attractions, shopping and dining, with facts and visitor information for each, and special offers at selected attractions. That turns the app into something you might open at breakfast to sketch out a day, not just when a bus is due.

City switching is handled without extra downloads, so moving from one destination to the next does not mean installing anything new. For a multi-city trip, that keeps the app useful from the first stop to the last. It is a small thing, but it is the sort of detail that decides whether an app stays on your phone after the first day.

What you need before it earns its keep

The app is free. That lowers the barrier to trying it. The purchase that matters is the tour ticket itself, which you can buy inside the app.

The obvious requirement is that you need to be somewhere Big Bus operates. Big Bus covers more than 25 cities, among them London, Paris and New York, so how useful the app is depends on the routes where you are visiting. If there is no Big Bus service where you are going, none of the tracking, maps or alerts have anything to show you.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the live features depend on the buses running and the service being tracked. The developer frames the app around real-time information, so the value you get tracks the reliability of the service on the day. That is a reasonable trade for a tool built around a moving fleet, but it does mean the app is at its best while you are actually traveling, not months before.

A fit for hop-on hop-off travelers

The clearest fit is a visitor who has already decided to use Big Bus and wants the practical side handled: where the nearest stop is, when the next bus comes, what is worth getting off for, and how to buy a ticket. The app gathers those jobs in one place, which is exactly what a sightseeing day needs.

It also suits people traveling across several cities on one trip. Switching between destinations without downloading anything extra keeps the app relevant from one stop to the next, and the attractions menu gives each city a starting point before you have learned the layout.

Families and groups may find the shared reference point useful, since the live map and stop details answer the recurring questions of where the bus is and what is nearby. I would not frame it as a replacement for a general travel guide, and it is not positioned as one. It is built for the buses, and it does that job with more detail than a folded route map.

The verdict on the Big Bus companion

If your trip includes a Big Bus route, this app is the sensible companion. Live bus locations, stop-level detail with photos and walking directions, service alerts and in-app ticket booking cover the practical side of a hop-on hop-off day, and the attractions menu adds enough to make it worth opening before you set out. The free price makes it an easy addition.

The limits are the limits of the service. It is built around Big Bus routes in the cities where the company operates, so it is not a general-purpose city guide, and the live features only mean something while you are riding. For travelers who plan to use those buses, it is a focused tool that answers the questions that come up during a sightseeing day.

I would install it before the trip rather than at the stop. Looking at the routes and stops in advance makes it easier to decide which ticket suits your plans, and once you are there the tracking and alerts do the rest. It is a long-running app that is still being worked on.

What's new in version 6.6.0

This update includes general improvements to keep your journey smooth.