London: Travellers on the London Underground train network will be able to use no-contact bank cards at the gates to pay for their journeys from September, the transport group said on Friday.
The contactless payment scheme will be launched on the Tube on September 16 following a successful trial of 3,000 customers.
"Offering the option of contactless payments will make it easier and more convenient for customers to pay for their travel," said Shashi Verma, Transport for London's director of customer experience.
The move is likely to be welcomed by visitors to the British capital, who will be able to avoid queueing to obtain an Oyster card, the city's electronic travel smartcard, and will instead have the option of creating a contactless account before arrival.
A single daily charge will be sent to customers' bank accounts, and the technology behind the move automatically calculates the best value fare for travellers based on their total travel that day.
Graham Peacop, managing director of the UK Cards Association, said: "This is a major step forward for contactless cards.
"Our experience shows that once people see how fast, easy and secure it is to pay with a contactless card for travel, they then make the switch from cash for other small payments too."
The contactless bank card payment system has been in place on London's buses since December 2012, and has been used by around 825,000 customers for 17 million journeys since then.
London buses stopped accepting cash earlier this month.
Comments
0 comment