Private Transportation
Private Transportation for Weddings, Funerals & Airport Trips
The occasions that matter are not medical. A wheelchair-accessible ride to a granddaughter’s wedding, a brother’s funeral, an early flight or a family lunch — booked privately, door to door, across Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
★★★★★ 5.0 from 71 Google reviews
The short answer
Private transportation is a wheelchair-accessible ride booked for a personal occasion rather than a medical one — a wedding, a funeral, a flight, a graduation. Carry On Services Inc provides it throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island for passengers who travel seated in their own wheelchair and for those who walk with assistance.
A family member in a wheelchair should not have to miss the day because nobody could work out the car. The vehicle takes the chair as it is, the driver assists at both ends, and the passenger arrives with everyone else.
No transfers needed
Ride seated in your own chair
Both ends covered
Door to door
MA & RI
Both states
5.0 ★
71 Google reviews
What is private transportation?
Private transportation is a ride you book yourself, for a reason that has nothing to do with a hospital.
Accessible transport in this country is organised almost entirely around healthcare, and the result is a quiet unfairness: a person can get to dialysis three times a week and cannot get to their own brother’s funeral.
Private transportation closes that: the same wheelchair-accessible van, the same driver assistance. What changes is the destination and who pays.
The trips this covers are:
- Weddings
- Funerals and wakes
- Airport transportation
- Graduations and proms
- Bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras and family parties
- Church services
- Restaurants and family meals
- Visiting family
- Shopping trips and malls
- Social events and days out
- Dates
No medical justification is required and no eligibility has to be established. Passengers may stay seated in their own wheelchair, or walk with an arm to lean on. Trips are booked one-way or round-trip, and every trip is door to door.
- Weddings
- Funerals and wakes
- Airport transportation
- Graduations and proms
- Bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras and family parties
- Church services
- Restaurants and family meals
- Visiting family
- Shopping trips and malls
- Social events and days out
- Dates
Wheelchair-accessible transport for weddings
Wedding logistics for a guest who uses a wheelchair tend to get solved late, usually the week of the wedding.
The improvised plan is nearly always the same: put grandma in the back of somebody’s car and fold the chair into a trunk. That means two awkward transfers in formal clothes, and a chair that may not fit.
Booked properly it stops being a logistics problem. The van collects the passenger from home, brings them to the venue door, and comes back at an agreed time.
| Wheelchair-accessible van | Transferring into a family car | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting in | Ramp; the passenger stays seated in their own chair | Two transfers, in formalwear, often in a car park |
| The wheelchair | Travels secured, in the vehicle, with the passenger | Folded into a trunk — if it folds at all |
| Powered chairs | Travel as they are | Usually will not fit at all |
| Who does the lifting | Nobody | A relative, in a suit, hoping for the best |
| Arriving | With everyone else, at the door of the venue | Wherever the car could be parked |
| Going home | Booked in advance | Negotiated at the end of a long evening |
Getting a relative to a funeral with dignity
Funerals are booked at short notice, by people who are grieving, and the transport question arrives at the worst possible moment. It is also the trip where getting it wrong is felt most.
What is needed is not complicated:
- A vehicle that takes the wheelchair without transfers.
- A driver who arrives early rather than exactly on time, because an unfamiliar chapel takes longer to enter.
- Someone who helps the passenger inside and finds them a place.
- A return trip already arranged, so the family is not making decisions in a car park afterwards.
Wakes, services, burials and the gathering afterwards can be part of one booking rather than three separate arrangements.
If you are arranging this for a relative now, calling is faster than the form: (855) 638-2568 or (508) 642-3995.
- A vehicle that takes the wheelchair without transfers.
- A driver who arrives early rather than exactly on time, because an unfamiliar chapel takes longer
- Someone who helps the passenger inside and finds them a place.
- A return trip already arranged, so the family is not making decisions in a car park afterwards.
Airport trips with mobility needs
The ground journey at either end is the part air travellers with a mobility need most often underestimate.
The trip itself is straightforward: collection from home, luggage loaded, the passenger seated in their own wheelchair or assisted into a seat, and a drop-off at the terminal door. On the return, a booked pickup means nobody is standing at arrivals trying to find an accessible vehicle.
Early departures are workable: the first pickups of the day start at 4:00 am. Book the outbound and return as a round trip if you know your flight times, or as two one-way trips if the return date is open.
Private transportation for elderly passengers
Most private trips are booked for an older relative, usually by an adult child rather than the passenger.
Private transportation for elderly passengers differs from a medical ride in one respect: the destination is something they want to go to rather than something they have to attend. Everything else is the same — the accessible vehicle, the door-to-door assistance, the drivers trained to help passengers who cannot manage stairs, the choice of wheelchair or ambulatory travel.
A parent whose only outings are appointments has a calendar made entirely of illness. A Sunday service, a restaurant meal, a grandson’s graduation change the shape of the month.
Regular non-medical trips — a weekly shop, a standing lunch, a church service — are covered on the [senior transportation](/senior-transportation/) page. This page is for the one-off occasions: the wedding, the funeral, the flight, the party.
How to book an event trip
Event trips have one extra ingredient: the timing works backwards from the event, not forwards from the pickup.
1. Work out the arrival time first. For a wedding or a funeral, plan to be at the door before the guests. An unfamiliar venue takes longer to enter than expected.
2. Book the trip. Use the booking form, or call (855) 638-2568 or (508) 642-3995.
3. Choose wheelchair or ambulatory, and one-way or round-trip. Round-trip is almost always right for an event.
4. Give the venue address, not just its name, along with any detail about the entrance — steps at the front, a side door with a ramp, a long gravel drive.
5. Check the cost estimate before confirming. You can cancel whenever you want, which matters when an event date moves.
Paying for a private trip
Private trips are almost always private pay. Better to say so here than to let someone discover it while booking a funeral.
The 10% discount on dialysis and physical therapy rides applies to those medical schedules, not to event trips. You see a cost estimate before confirming, so the price is known before anything is committed.
| Payment method | Private trips (wedding, funeral, airport, social) |
|---|---|
| Cash | Accepted |
| Debit and credit cards | Accepted |
| Private insurance | Accepted by the company, but a non-medical trip is not normally an insured journey — ** |
| Medicaid / Medicare | Accepted for medical transport; not normally applicable to a social occasion — ** |
| ABI / MFP Waiver | Accepted for eligible passengers — ** |
| Workers’ compensation | Injury-related travel only |
Where we travel
Private transportation runs across Massachusetts and Rhode Island, from:
Main office: 25 Braintree Hill Office Pk #200, Braintree, MA 02184 Satellite office: Fall River, MA
Between them they cover Greater Boston, the South Shore, the South Coast and the Rhode Island border, so a wedding in one state and a passenger in the other is an ordinary booking.
First pickups start at 4:00 am, covering early flights and long drives to a morning service.
Don't leave anyone at home
If the date is set, the trip can be booked. Tell us the venue, the arrival time and who is travelling, and you see the cost before you confirm.
Call (855) 638-2568 or (508) 642-3995, or email support@carryonservicesinc.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ten questions, answered plainly.
What counts as a private trip rather than a medical one?
Anything where the destination is not healthcare: a wedding, a funeral, an airport, a graduation, a restaurant, a party, a visit to family. No medical justification is needed and no eligibility has to be established.
Can you take a wheelchair user to a wedding?
Yes, and it is one of the most common private bookings. The passenger travels seated in their own wheelchair, is brought to the venue door rather than the kerb, and the return leg is arranged in advance.
Can you transport someone to a funeral or a wake?
Yes. A service, a burial and the gathering afterwards can be handled as one round-trip booking rather than three separate arrangements. Call rather than using the form if the funeral is imminent — it is faster.
Do you do airport runs?
Airport transportation is part of the service, with pickups from 4:00 am for early departures. **
Can several people travel together for a family occasion?
Families almost always ask whether a spouse, a son or a daughter can travel alongside the wheelchair user. **
Can the driver wait during the event and take us home afterwards?
Waiting during a wedding or a service is the single most-requested part of an event booking. **
Are evening and weekend trips available?
Weddings, funerals and parties rarely happen on a weekday morning, so this decides whether a booking is possible at all. The day starts at 4:00 am. **
Will insurance pay for a ride to a wedding?
Assume not. Non-medical journeys are normally private pay by cash, debit or credit card, and insurance or waiver programmes are designed around healthcare travel. Ask before booking if a waiver programme is involved.
How far ahead should an event trip be booked?
Book as soon as the date is fixed, particularly for weddings, since event days concentrate demand into a few hours. Funerals are the exception and are arranged at short notice. **
Can you take a relative to a graduation, a prom or a quinceañera?
Yes. Graduations, proms, bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, birthdays and parties are all regular private bookings. The trip is arranged exactly like any other: door to door, wheelchair or ambulatory, one-way or round-trip. —
Book the ride, not the worry
Tell us what the week looks like and we will arrange it, including the trips that repeat every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.