One in five contactless payments on London’s public transportation network are now made using a mobile phone or other non-card device, Transport for London (TfL) has revealed.
The information was made public following a Freedom of Information Act request which also asked TfL how the introduction of contactless bank card payments has contributed to reducing its costs of revenue collection.
The requestor explained that “in July 2017, Transport for London told its Customer Service and Operational Performance Panel that the cost of collecting fares had fallen from 14.3% of revenue in the 2005-2006 fiscal year to 9.2% in 2015-2016″ and asked for more recent figures.
TfL replied that 2015/16 was the last year for which a cost of revenue collection analysis was conducted and gave some insight into why it does not have more recent overall information or a detailed breakdown of the cost savings related to contactless cards.
“The cost of revenue collection consists of a large number of elements such as maintenance of ticket gates and readers, ticket machines and back office systems,” it explained.
“We have not attempted to identify the cost reductions attributable solely to contactless payments, as we are seeing a range of changes in customer behaviour, all of which drive cost reductions in their own rights.
“However, we are able to identify that the cost of processing a contactless transaction is around 80% lower than the cost of processing a transaction at an Oyster Ticket Stop.”
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Nothing is worse than being behind someone with a mobile phone approaching the ticket gates, especially in the rush hour. The mobile is much slower than a contactless card so there is a momentary hesitation to see if the mobile will work. Then there are the times that the mobile is locked and the idiot has forgotten that they need to type in a code. This means everyone else behind has to halt suddenly causing all sorts of issues!! Ban mobiles and contactless NOW!