Over one million contactless journeys since launch

25 September 2014

More than one million journeys have now been made using contactless payment cards and devices since Transport for London (TfL) launched the new way to pay for public transport in London last Tuesday, 16 September.  

Contactless payments can be made for travel on Tube, tram, DLR, London Overground and National Rail services that accept Oyster as well as London Buses.   

Contactless payments have been available on the bus network since December 2012. Since contactless payments launched across transport in London last Tuesday there has been a significant rise in bus journeys using contactless payment, with the highest being 100,000 journeys in a day.   The total number of journeys on Tube and Rail services in London has now reached over 375,000 and the total number of journeys on London Buses and Trams since contactless payments launched across transport in London last week is now over 785,000.  

There have been over 250,000 instances per day of customers touching a contactless payment card or device on readers across transport in London.

This brings the total number of times customers have touched in or out on the payment readers to 1.6 million since contactless launched last week.  

Contactless payments are now making up nearly five per cent of all pay as you go journeys on the network with the most popular London Underground stations for contactless currently being Canary Wharf, Oxford Circus, London Bridge, Victoria and Liverpool Street.  

Shashi Verma, TfL's Director of Customer Experience, said: `It is really encouraging to see over one million contactless journeys on transport across London in the first week. We want travelling in London to be as easy and convenient for our customers as possible and contactless is one of the steps we have taken to make that happen.`  

Using contactless payments for travel is really easy. Customers with a contactless payment card (debit, credit, charge or pre-paid cards) just simply have to touch their card on the reader. There is no need to sign up for an online account with TfL, but there are many benefits if customers choose to, including being able to see 12 months of journey and payment history. Customers who don't have any online account can still access their journey and payment history, but only for the last seven days.   Contactless payments work in the same way as Oyster, charging customers an adult-rate pay as you go fare when they touch in and out on readers at the start and end of every journey.

Customers using contactless payments for their travel can benefit from having their fares capped - this automatically calculates the best fare for their contactless travel in a day or over a seven-day period from Monday to Sunday.   Oyster will continue to be available, with contactless payments being another option that lets customers travel without the need to top up Oyster credit. The next part of TfL's plans to revolutionise ticketing concentrate on how the benefits of contactless can be brought to Oyster, to ensure all customers experience the same convenience.

Four customers who are using contactless to travel in London talk about why it is the best way to pay for their travel here:

Card clash is being closely monitored and customers are being refunded when they may have accidentally touched more than one card on a reader and paid with a card they did not intend to use. On average there have been around 1,700 instances each weekday where customers may have accidentally paid with a contactless payment card they did not intend to pay with and all of these are being automatically refunded by TfL. This figure compares with a pre-launch estimate of around 2,000 - less than 0.1 per cent of the smartcard rail journeys made in London every day. 

  • More information on contactless payments for transport in London can be found at www.tfl.gov.uk/contactless
  • All UK issued contactless American Express, MasterCard or Visa credit, debit, charge or pre-paid cards will be accepted for contactless payments. Other methods of contactless payment that meet financial industry standards, including mobile phones, may also be accepted. Some non-UK cards may not be accepted, card holders should check the TfL website before attempting to use them for travel
  • London Buses have been accepting contactless since December 2012. In April 2014 a pilot of the contactless system involving around 5,000 customers started on the Tube and Rail network
  • For customers making several rail journeys or a mixture of rail, bus and tram journeys in one day, pay as you go is usually better than buying a Day Travelcard. The Monday to Sunday cap is available for journeys made between 0430 on Monday and 0429 the following Monday
  • There are currently 652 stations that accept Oyster on Tube, tram, DLR, Overground and National Rail services.