Contactless debit and credit cards are accepted on all Transport for London services with fares costing the same as Oyster pay as you go but without the need for passengers to top-up before travel.
Visa’s UK managing director, Kevin Jenkins, says TfL’s acceptance of contactless cards has proven to be a “game changer” which has helped drive up consumer use of the technology.
Contactless now represents 25% of all pay as you go transactions across the TfL network and Jenkins today revealed that the number of Tube journeys taken by Visa cardholders in single day passed the one million mark for the first time in December.
The use of contactless is projected to grow further thanks in part to TfL’s plans to extend the technology to the capital’s black cabs.
Jenkins said Visa predicts “tremendous enthusiasm” among business users for the addition of contactless which he said would “give black cabbies around the city a powerful tool to compete with ride-share companies.”
Contactless has also been hailed as “a huge success” by Shashi Verma, TfL’s Director of Customer Experience.
Mr Verma said “there have been more than 250 million journeys made using cards from over 80 countries” since contactless was introduced in September 2014.
He added: “As more people update their cards and see the benefits of this quick and easy to use technology, we’re confident this number will increase even more.”
