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London buses reach contactless payment benchmark

One million bus journeys in London have now been completed using the new payment method in just four months.
Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer

Contactless payments have increased in popularity as over one million bus journeys in London have now been completed using the new payment method.

According to Transport for London, being able to pay for your journey using a contactless debit, credit or charge card not only saves the hassle of topping up an Oyster card or using cash, but is making the process quicker.

The department says that up to 10,000 people a day are using the system only four months after the scheme was introduced on 13 December 2012. In December on the first day of launch, TFL documented 2,061 people making 2,586 journeys using contactless payment methods, and now up to 10,000 people are now making as many as 16,000 journeys each day using NFC cards.

The department sees these rising figures as "encouraging," and plans to roll out contactless payment for the Tube, DLR, London Overground and trams around the capital at the end of this year.

See also:In times of recession, spend $1m on a bus stop

The most popular routes to use NFC-enabled cards are on route 38 from Clapton Pond to Victoria, route 73 from Victoria to Stoke Newington, route 55 from Leyton to Oxford Circus, route 243 from Wood Green to Waterloo and route 149 from Edmonton Green to London Bridge.

Sandra Alzetta, Senior Vice President at Visa Europe -- one of the scheme's partners -- said:

"Today's milestone is further validation that contactless payment is a convenience consumers really appreciate.

We're seeing a corresponding growth in the use of contactless cards across the U.K.; £33 million was spent on Visa contactless cards in February, and the number of transactions has grown by 25 per cent in the last quarter to reach 4.5 million every month."

Check out an infographic on the subject below:

Via: Tom's Hardware

Image credit: TFL

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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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