Daily and Monday to Sunday fare capping now applies for bus passengers using contactless payments in London.
The best value for a passenger’s contactless travel over a sevenday period is now automatically calculated. Daily fares for bus journeys are capped at £4.40, the same as they are for Oyster, meaning that after the fourth journey each day, any further bus travel is not charged. A Monday to Sunday cap now also applies for users of contactless payment cards at £20.20, the equivalent of a weekly Bus and Tram Pass.
Contactless payments were launched on London’s buses in December 2012. Since then, over 850,000 customers have used their contactless payment card to pay the single bus fare around 17 million times, currently around 62,000 per day. Customers using contactless no longer have to check and top up their Oyster credit.
After over 19 months of successful operation, the capping functionality is being added ahead of the expansion of contactless payments to the Tube, trams, DLR and London Overground on September 16.
In a separate development, EE customers with NFC-enabled (Near Field Communication) smartphones can now use their phones to make contactless payments on London buses.
Individuals with NFC-enabled devices and EE’s Cash on Tap app will be charged the same as Oyster card customers, with sums debited directly from the digital wallets on their handsets.
Cash on Tap, which launched last year, is expected to be compatible with half a million EE smartphones by the end of 2014.
