Bus Operations
Ealing Community Transport was established in the 1970s to serve the small towns on the outskirts of Ealing. Due to a lack of revenue the service was shut down in the late 1990s.
In April 2003 ECT was restarted and won the tender to operate Transport for London route 195 (Ealing Hospital - Charville Lane) from First Group, using a fleet of new 10.2m low-floor, dual-door Caetano Nimbus-bodied Dennis Darts, replacing First's short, single-door Marshall-bodied Darts. Not only was the vehicle capacity increased at this time, the frequency was enhanced to provide a 12-minute service throughout the day (20 mins evenings and Sundays). The increased frequency was popular with passengers and loadings increased.
During the early 2000s it decreased its frequency to 15 minutes. ECT also experienced problems with vandalism and arson attacks on its buses, and came third from last in the best contractor survey. Initial problems with window etching were quickly addressed and ECT Bus was involved in Operation Eyesore in west London, in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police and TfL, where front-page images on local papers identified local vandals, leading to a number of convictions. Performance of the route was exemplary in terms of operated mileage (before traffic causes) and, despite operating through Southall, an area renowned for its challenging traffic environment, reliability was extremely good - at April 2006, ECT Bus was in second position in TfL's league table for smaller operators. The bus fleet for the 195 contract stood at 14 vehicles.
From 14 March 2009 ECT stopped trading as a bus operator and its sole route is now being run by First London on a temporary contract.
Read more about this topic: Ealing Community Transport
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