PTV to commence operating the Route 477 bus service directly into English Street from Sunday 14 June, 2020.

• New PTV bus connecting Essendon Fields to Essendon Station
• Services 7 days per week
• Departs every 20 minutes during peak hour

Essendon Fields welcomes the commencement of a new direct public transport service into its English Street employment, aviation, and retail hub. Beginning 14 June, the Route 477 Bus will be diverted into bus stops outside Essendon Fields Central on English Street, 7 days per week.

The new service marks the first direct public transport into the revitalised Essendon Fields precinct in decades, which in the past 20 years has grown from a derelict airport into a major employment, aviation and retail hub with over 200 businesses and 6,000 daily workers. The Route 477 Bus, which runs between Moonee Ponds Junction and Broadmeadows via Essendon Train Station, will offer Essendon Fields workers and travellers a regular and direct connection to train services.

Public transport access into such a jobs rich growth area has been critically important, and the updated service is the culmination of long-term planning between Essendon Fields Management, local Members of Parliament and the Department of Transport.

State Member for Niddrie, The Hon. Ben Carroll, has also been a strong advocate for increasing public transport accessibility into Essendon Fields, and welcomed the commencement of the new bus service. “Increased services into Essendon Fields will benefit residents living in the North-West of Melbourne,” said Minister Carroll.

In the local Moonee Valley area Essendon Fields contributes the equivalent of 15% of jobs and 16% of total municipal economic activity, a figure projected to grow over the next 10 years in line with the Essendon Fields Airport Masterplan. Essendon Fields CEO, Brendan Pihan, stressed the importance of public transport connectivity to facilitate job creation in the area, whilst also offering an inexpensive option for over 40,000 annual regional passengers to connect to Melbourne CBD via Essendon Station.

“Quality road and transport access is the single most important factor in enabling Essendon Fields to continue stimulating the Victorian economy via our building and development pipeline and to create job opportunities to work within the businesses that make the move here. In 2017 we funded our own free shuttle bus to Essendon Station, which has allowed us to attract or retain large, quality employers like Wilson Security, Visy and LaManna Supermarket.  The addition of the Route 477 service will allow us to continue operating our own shuttle further into the precinct, opening up new areas for employment accessibility across the park.”

The new service commences on Sunday 14 June.

• For further detail and bus schedule visit the PTV website.
• For information on all Essendon Fields transport options visit our Getting Here page.

Did you know? 

According to Roger Meyer, historian at the on site Airways Museum, the last ‘bus’ into the airport ran in 1943, and was actually an open air truck that carried 6 passengers. In the airport’s heyday most people got here by tram. More from Roger below:

“The 59 tram originally terminated in Keilor Road, but during the War years, when about 4,000 people worked at Essendon Aerodrome, the line was extended along Lancefield Road (now the freeway) and turned right at Vaughan Street and terminated just short of Wirraway Road. The headboard on the tram was titled ESSENDON AERODROME. The service continued after the Tullamarine Freeway opened, but the line was re-routed to Airport West in 1976.

During 1942-43 there was one daily bus (Monday to Friday) from Essendon junction (“Westbrun”) in the morning to the ‘drome, but that was all. In the afternoons, Roy Hubble, the Caretaker, would drive staff back to the corner on the Department of Civil Aviation’s Dodge. It was an open truck with a row of seats down each side and carried six passengers.”