Milestone for contactless bus payments

One million bus journeys in London have now been paid for using a contactless debit, credit or charge card. And around 10,000 people a day are using their cards to pay their bus fare in the capital, reports TfL.

In the four months since the launch of contactless payments on buses on 13 December 2012, the number of people using these cards has risen each week. From 2,061 people making 2,586 journeys on the first day in December, up to 10,000 people are now making as many as 16,000 journeys each day. Meanwhile, around 1,000 new contactless payment cards are touched on to the readers on London's 8,500 buses each day.

TfL says that the take-up is encouraging as plans progress for the roll-out of contactless on the Tube, DLR, London Overground and trams at the end of the year. Daily price capping does not apply to current bus users of these cards, but once the technology is rolled out to the wider transport network daily and weekly price capping will be introduced.

Shashi Verma, TfL's director of customer experience, says: "Paying for a bus fare should be as easy as buying a sandwich. Enabling customers to use their contactless payment card on the buses removes the inconvenience of needing to top up an Oyster card or dig around for cash before making a journey. It is fantastic that we've already seen a million bus journeys made using a contactless payment cards and it's a great sign that our customers are keen to benefit from this technology. We are now working hard to roll contactless payments out to the rest of the transport network."

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