London’s Contactless TfL Journeys Top 1m A Day For The First Time

London’s travellers have embraced contactless payments to such an extent that over a million journeys a day are now being aid for using the technology across the capital’s TfL network.

That’s according to new figures from Visa Europe, which found that more than a million Visa cardholder journeys were completed in a single day during December.

The company also found that contactless now represents 25 percent of all pay-as-you-go payment transactions made on the TfL network, with the majority of these choosing to use their Visa debit or credit cards to travel around London.

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Contactless payment using Visa cards first began in September 2014, and has seen a huge growth in popularity since then.

Over the course of December, Visa Europe saw a 166 percent annual increase in the total number of journeys by people who used their Visa card to pay as they travelled, and a total spend for the year of £339 million – seven times the amount previously spent.

And with systems such as Apple Pay becoming ever more widespread, the company only sees the chance to grow this number in 2016.

“Partnering with TfL from the outset, Visa Europe has helped drive what has become a game changer for both the payments and public transportation worlds,” said Kevin Jenkins, Visa Europe regional managing director, UK & Ireland.

“On the back of this success, other metropolitan transit authorities throughout Europe are looking into contactless technology to improve and simplify their fare collection systems.  For Visa, public transport provides another venue to normalise contactless payments, making it part of a routine behaviour for consumers.”

The company has also confirmed that it will support TfL’s launch of contactless payment systems in London’s iconic black cabs next year.

“Contactless payments on TfL services has been a huge success,” said TfL’s director of customer experience, Shashi Verma. “A quarter of our pay as you go customers use contactless payment already because it is so quick and easy and there have been more than 250 million journeys made using cards from over 80 countries. 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.”

The news will also help support calls for a nationwide expansion of contactless payment services across the UK’s travel network, following an announcement by the UK Cards Association earlier this week that it had now gained government backing for such a project.

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