London’s buses go cash free from this Sunday
· From
Sunday 6th July passengers boarding buses need to be in possession of a
prepaid or concessionary ticket, Oyster or contactless payment card
· Around 44,000 customers a day already benefitting from Oyster ‘One More Journey’
· Refreshed vulnerable passenger guidance delivered to all 24,500 bus drivers
London
buses will stop accepting cash fares from Sunday 6th July, as Transport
for London (TfL) moves to a cash free bus network across the capital.
This
means that all passengers boarding a bus in London will need to be in
possession of a prepaid or concessionary ticket, Oyster card or
contactless payment card. This will have no impact on the vast majority
of our passengers as over 99 per cent already pay for their journeys
with Oyster, or using a prepaid or concessionary ticket. Concessionary
tickets are used by one third of customers including children and young
people, older and disabled people and the unemployed. Research
shows this change is also unlikely to affect tourists as the vast
majority use a prepaid ticket, such as a Visitor Oyster, to get around
the capital.
TfL
has introduced a number of initiatives to ensure a smooth and trouble
free transition for customers to a cash free bus service. This includes
Oyster ‘One More Journey’ which was introduced one month early following
a successful trial. This feature allows customers to make one more
journey should they have insufficient pay as you go credit on their
Oyster card.
Since
its introduction in June, around 44,000 customers a day have benefited
from this feature, ensuring they can get home or to the nearest Oyster
Ticket Stop to top up. Of those customers, over 80 per cent have topped
up their Oyster card before making a further journey. As a result of
this, cash fares have dropped and are now only used to pay for around
0.7 per cent of all journeys on London buses.
Other
initiatives include giving refreshed guidance on vulnerable passengers
to all of London’s 24,500 bus drivers and a review of the Oyster Ticket
Stops which has seen the network expand.
Mike
Weston, TfL’s Director of Buses, said: “The way our customers pay for
goods and services is evolving, so we need to ensure our ticketing
evolves too. Removing cash from our bus network not only offers
customers a quicker and more efficient bus service but it enables us to
make savings of £24m a year which will be re-invested to further improve
London’s transport network.”
The
decision to move to cash free bus travel follows a considerable drop in
the number of people paying their bus fare in cash. A decade ago
around 25 per cent of journeys were paid for with a cash fare with that
figure now falling to less than one per cent.
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Another set of images from the Bus & Coach Preservation event held on Sunday 29th June within the Hertfordshire Showground at Redbourn. Images can now be found by clicking here