Londoners can’t seem to get enough of contactless payments. The city’s affinity for them has reached a new height with over a million trips being made daily across London that are paid for using a contactless method, according to London’s transit department, Transportation for London (TfL).
Since the launch of the service in 2012, the popularity of contactless payments among daily commuters seems to be growing so rapidly that the department has clocked over 300 million rides that were paid for by a contactless payment method. Over 3.2 million of those were made using mobile payment methods in just the last seven months, the department announced.
“More than 300 million journeys have been made using contactless cards from over 80 countries, and 27 percent of pay-as-you-go customers on the Tube and rail now use contactless payment because it is so quick and easy,” said Shashi Verma, director of customer experience at TfL.
Metrics released by TfL also suggest that the upward climb isn’t just reflective of the same pool of commuters using contactless payments more often to pay for their rides but, in fact, includes new commuters who are giving up paper tickets to tap themselves in and out of TfL’s network.
“Nearly 25,000 new cards are used on the network every day,” the department said. “Around 3.5 percent of all contactless journeys are now made using mobile technology, with around an extra 7,000 devices now seen on average every week.”
As TfL braces to see wider adoption, plans are underway to improve its contactless payment system and discourage use of paper tickets on the Tube.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More