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Tom Edwards
Transport correspondent, London
The beginning of the end of cash and the paper ticket?
New technology means you can 'touch in' with a bank card as well as an Oyster card
It's been a long time coming but from Thursday passengers can pay for bus fares using a contactless bankcard.
It uses the same technology you are now seeing in high street sandwich shops.
It will cost the same price as an Oyster single fare - £1.35 - but for now it will not be part of the daily cap. So it's meant to replace cash.
I've been given a look behind the scenes at the work that's been going on at Transport for London (TfL).
Every bus is now 3G integrated and it sends a signal straight away checking the card has enough funds on it.
Next generationFor the last year a small van has been driving around all the bus routes testing the 3G signal. In the back a "windmill" has been rigged up which touches an Oyster card onto a reader.
More than 35,000 passengers a day get on a bus and then realise they don't have enough on their Oyster card so this will offer an alternative.
This is the start of big changes for ticketing in London.
Next year we will see this on the Tube and the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) but for now though it won't be included in the daily fare cap, which means passengers never spend more than the price of an equivalent Day Travelcard.
The Oyster card has been a big success but using bankcards is the next generation.
Other cities are watching very closely and many won't bother introducing their own smartcard systems if the bankcard system works.
The cost of rolling it out on the buses is £5m and for the Tube it will be £74m but the payback is substantial for TfL.
It thinks it can save £30m a year by not collecting cash from buses.
It's not difficult to see that one day nearly everyone will be using a bankcard or Oyster on the transport network.
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Comment number 4.
Andrew Bowden14th December 2012 - 10:28
They'd have to scrap all travelcards before they could get rid of Oyster and replace them with cards. Hard to imagine how I could have an annual Travelcard on my credit card.
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Comment number 3.
Shunter13th December 2012 - 21:11
To answer your query "thecolour"..as it says in the article 35,000 people a day still pay for their bus ride with cash, because their oyster card does not have enough funds or they rarley travel by bus perhaps and just dont have an oyster card in the first place.
Thats a lot of cash to count each day. I imagine too Osyter itself will be phased out over long term as we will all use our bank cards
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Comment number 2.
thecolour13th December 2012 - 15:59
I don't understand where demand is going to come from. Everyone already has an oyster card which works perfectly well and is already in every bus, tram, and tube station. What need are they trying to fill?
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Comment number 1.
Kit Green13th December 2012 - 14:32
I resent banks taking a cut of everything I spend. I hope TfL have a good deal with them. Seems a dangerous liaison to me.
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