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\nToon Tour, the sightseeing bus service across Newcastle and Gateshead has become the winner of the inaugural UK Open Top Bus Cup, sponsored by Ticketer. This follows its victory in the Final against New Forest Tours.<\/p>\n
The competition is the brainchild of Great Scenic Journeys, the new organisation that promotes a collection of eye-catching public transport routes across the UK & Ireland and accredits their customer service credentials. 32 teams (or open top bus routes!) entered at the beginning of July and were pitted against each other, with the public voting on their favourite in each game.<\/p>\n
Ben Maxfield who heads up Toon Tour and the wider Go North East bus business commented: \u201cWe are thrilled to hear that our Toon Tour has been named the best Open Top Bus Tour in the UK. The team work hard to make this service a success and I think it\u2019s a fantastic way to see the area. I\u2019d encourage anyone who fancies to go for a ride, it is particularly good for a day out with the kids\u201d.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not surprised that both Toon Tours and New Forest Tours made it to the final<\/p>\n
Alex Warner, chief executive of Great Scenic Journeys commented: \u201cWe\u2019re not surprised that both Toon Tours and New Forest Tours made it to the final. We carry out customer service reviews of all the routes that are part of the Great Scenic Journeys collection, and these performed really well in their reviews last month. You can\u2019t get much different when it comes to the scenery in the eclectic Toon and the stunning New Forest landscape, but both companies share a passion for making customers happy. The Geordie locals, also got massively behind their favourite route and roared them onto victory, with their customary gusto and fervour\u201d.<\/p>\n
The final was neck and neck before Toon Tour powered ahead, receiving 65% of the votes, despite New Forest Tours, with its famous wildlife and popular on-board commentary, looking capable of a fightback. Like Go North East, New Forest Tours is also owned by Go-Ahead, which saw off many of its rivals along the way to the final.<\/p>\n
There have been some fascinating, tight matches along the journey to glory. The scores were level between Skegness Seasiders and Sunseeker from Cornwall \u2013 the Lincolnshire bus which has quirky names for each of its vehicles, prevailing in a replay. Newcomers Peak Sightseer from Stagecoach made it to the Cup Quarter Final, beating red-hot favourites Exmoor Coaster \u2013 Britain\u2019s steepest bus route \u2013 in the first round, whilst Cardiff Bus saw its newly revamped service progress to the Semi-Final where it was narrowly defeated by Toon Tour.
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\nThere were also fierce local derbies in Dorset, with the bus that goes on a boat, the Purbeck Breezer losing out to neighbours Jurassic Coaster. Purbeck are owned by Go Ahead Group and Jurassic Coaster by First. However, Go Ahead got their revenge as their New Forest Tours edged out Jurassic Coaster in another cliff-hanger derby, this time in the second semi-final.<\/p>\n
The draw also threw up some other interesting ties with McGill\u2019s two Edinburgh Sightseeing Tours being pitched against each other (Britannia beating City Sightseeing) and a south east seaside encounter between renowned friends Eastbourne Sightseeing and Thanet Open Top 69, run by Stagecoach. Independently owned Eastbourne Sightseeing prevailed, but it wasn\u2019t a surprise as they\u2019ve been relentlessly putting on additional services all summer to cope with demand for their trips to the top of Beachy Head!<\/p>\n
For details on the road to the Final and Great Scenic Journeys, click onto www.greatscenicjourneys.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 DON\u2019T MISS OUT \u2013 GET YOUR COPY! \u2013\u00a0click here to subscribe!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The post Toon Tour wins inaugural UK Open Top Bus Cup<\/a> first appeared on Passenger Transport<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u200b\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Initially set up to procure the Wales and Borders rail franchise, Transport for Wales will be tasked with nurturing a \u2018multi-modal culture in Wales\u2019 \u00a0 \u00a0 Toon Tour, the sightseeing bus service across Newcastle and Gateshead has become the winner of the inaugural UK Open Top Bus Cup, sponsored by Ticketer. This follows its victory in the Final against New…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This article appears inside the latest issue of\u00a0Passenger Transport<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n