Shiloh Todd first got the idea for a senior transportation service taking his grandmother to the doctor.

"The doctor was giving me praise for taking care of my grandmother,” said Mr Todd who runs a business called Next Gen Prodigy. “He said a lot of seniors live alone and don’t get the chance to do much.”

It got Mr Todd thinking.

“My family runs a taxi service,” he said. “If my Nana is like this and is always calling us to help her out with groceries or just to go for a drive, other people must be going through the same thing.”

He wanted to help both his grandmother and taxi drivers.

At the end of January, he and several of the people who drove taxis for his family launched a trial run of Seniors Day Out. For $39 per person, they will take a senior out in a taxi for a drive or to run errands. Recently, they took one passenger for a drive to Woody’s Sports Bar and Restaurant in Sandys to get a fish sandwich.

“The client was telling us how she always used to go there with her friends,” Mr Todd said.

The majority of the jobs they have had, so far, have been pure gallivanting. Many older people just want to get out of the house for a little while.

“Surprisingly, not a lot of our clients have gone for grocery shopping,” he said. “They seem to like talking to the driver and being out. They are missing being mobile.”

He is offering the service for seniors three times a week.

“We try to change the days every week,” he added.

They do not have wheelchair accessible taxis at the moment.

“We are only doing this for three hours of the day, three times a week, so the taxi driver can continue working as normal the rest of the time,” he said.

Mr Todd said the seniors who have taken advantage of the service have been very grateful.

“They tell our drivers they don’t usually do much at home,” he said. “That made me a bit emotional.”

Some of the clients have said taking the bus is challenging because they cannot stand for long periods of time waiting for the bus to arrive.

So far, the service is for people 60 and older, but Mr Todd is considering expanding to people with mobility challenges, generally, and possibly people with mental health challenges.

He said the launch in January was a test to see if there was demand for the service. He was particularly excited when he was approached by Age Concern to discuss collaboration.

“Hearing that Age Concern was interested was very encouraging,” he said. “We have had a lot of interest. We can conclude that the test-run was successful.”

He plans to continue using the family taxis, but wants to get his own in the future.

“That was always in my plan,” he said. “I will probably have someone else to drive it because I have other projects as well.”

The most challenging aspects of setting up Seniors Day Out, for Mr Todd, has been getting the word out there, and also gaining people’s trust.

“We are taking people’s family members on a trip for a couple of hours,” he said.

This is not Mr Todd’s only transportation project. Since 2016, he has been working on a bus alert system called Pink and Blue.

For more information see nextgenprodigy.com/#seniors