Following a successful pilot in early 2024, Ealing Community Transport has fully launched it’s new PlusBus Direct service.
PlusBus Direct is there to help older and disabled people – or anyone who finds public transport difficult to use – to access the places and services important to them. The service picks up passengers from their door and takes them to supermarkets, shopping centres, warm spaces, community centres, community events, leisure centres and many more, before taking them safely home again afterwards.
Unlike our existing PlusBus service and services like Dial-a-Ride, PlusBus direct takes people to popular destinations on a particular day of the week. The idea is to help tackle loneliness and social isolation by bringing people together for trips, making the journey there and back into a more social occasion.
“We learned a lot from our pilot of the service” said Kez Etan, General Manager at Ealing Community Transport. “Our passengers told us that, due to challenges around the cost of living, they would welcome a much lower cost for a return trip. Thanks to funding from Heathrow Community Trust’s Communities Together grant programme, we can make the return price an affordable £5 – and carers go free.
“I’d like to thank the Heathrow Community Trust. This funding means that we can do more to help tackle loneliness and social isolation in Ealing, helping access to services and improving people’s health and wellbeing.”
To use the service, people will need to register as PlusBus members, which is quick and easy to do – and also gives access to our regular PlusBus service.
Full information on the new service can be found here, including details on how to book – and details of our first set of destinations can be found here.
