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CPAY is the codename of the contactless payment system operated by Transport for London in and around London. [1] It does not have a public facing brand name and is simply known as pay as you go by contactless by the public. [2]
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CPAY is the codename of the contactless payment system operated by Transport for London in and around London. [1] It does not have a public facing brand name and is simply known as pay as you go by contactless by the public. [2]
In 2014, Transport for London became the first public transport provider in the world to accept payment from contactless bank cards. [3] TfL first started accepting contactless debit and credit cards on London Buses on 13 December 2012, [4] expanding to the Underground, Tram and the Docklands Light Railway in September 2014. [5] Since 2016, contactless payment can also take place using contactless-enabled mobile devices such as phones and smartwatches, using Apple Pay, [6] Google Pay and Samsung Pay. [7]
TfL designed and coded the contactless payment system in-house, at a cost of £11m, after realising existing commercial solutions were inflexible or too focused on retail use. [3] Since the launch of contactless payment in 2012, over 500 million journeys have been made, using over 12 million contactless bank cards. [8] Consequently, TfL is now one of Europe's largest contactless merchants, with around 1 in 10 contactless transactions in the UK taking place on the TfL network. [8]
In 2016, TfL licensed their contactless payment system to Cubic, the original developers of the Oyster card, allowing the technology to be sold to other transport providers worldwide. [8] In 2017, licensing deals were signed with New York City, [9] New South Wales [10] and Boston. [11]
The same requirement to touch in and out on underground services applies to contactless cards. The same price capping that applies to the use of Oyster cards applies to the use of contactless cards (provided the same card is used for the day's journeys). The fare paid every day is settled with the bank and appears on the debit or credit card statement. Detailed usage data is written to Transport for London's systems and is available for customers who register their contactless cards with Transport for London. Unlike an Oyster card, a contactless card does not store credit (beyond the holder's credit limit) and there is no need or facility to add credit to the card.
Since August 2019, expansion to the pay as you go network around London has been done exclusively on contactless but not Oyster.
Although the use of a contactless payment card for travel is exactly the same as an Oyster card, as a contactless card cannot be written into, they work differently in the background.
An Oyster card stores the balance in the card itself, and records all the touches made in the card. It can also store discounts and season tickets as well. None of the above is possible with a contactless payment card, therefore all the fare calculations are done in batch on the back end, after all the touches in a day are aggregated from the readers.
Like an Oyster card, contactless cards offer daily capping. However, the capping on Oyster cards are done in real-time, with the zones used stored inside the card, which is not possible on contactless. As the fares are calculated in batch by the back end for contactless cards, cheaper non-zonal caps may be available on contactless cards for certain stations.
In addition, due to how Oyster system works, if you start from Zone 6 for one journey into Zone 1, then stay within Zone 1 all day, the Oyster system will charge you up to the Zones 1-6 cap, but on contactless, if the Zones 1-2 cap plus the single extension from Zone 6 is cheaper, it will charge that instead since the back end looks for the whole day of the journey history and charges as a batch. [12]
Contactless cards also offer weekly capping as well, which was not available initially on Oyster due to the real-time nature and the information stored on the card.
Since 27 September 2021, the back end processing used for contactless payments has also been applied on adult-rate Oyster cards, which enables weekly capping for these cards as well. Any overcharging compared to a contactless payment card, like the scenarios described above, will be refunded automatically to the Oyster card. [13]
As the amount to be charged isn't known after travelling, at first use of a card, a pre-authorisation of £0.10 is requested on the card to check if it is valid. If the actual fare requested after the day is declined, the card is temporarily blocked for use until the unpaid fare is paid. [14]
As a contactless payment card cannot be written into, when a contactless payment card is presented for fare inspection, the device does not know in real time if it has been tapped in or not (however, some other contactless payment systems, such as OVpay, can do this), unlike an Oyster card.
If during the conciliation process, a revenue inspection check cannot be matched to a touch-in, a failed revenue inspection will occur and a maximum fare will be charged as a result. If a card gets 3 failed revenue inspections, it will be blocked from travelling on the network. [15]
Although a contactless payment card can be used as the same way as an Oyster card when making adult pay as you go journeys, it cannot fully replace an Oyster card yet as it does not support loading discounts or season Travelcards. In addition, as buses and trams in London no longer accept cash, an Oyster card, or a 1-day bus and tram pass (which is based on the technology of Oyster card), is the only way for people to pay the bus fare without a compatible contactless payment card.
The use of a contactless payment card by travellers is exactly the same as with an Oyster card. However, unlike an Oyster card, a contactless payment card can only be used for paying as you go at the adult rate. Season tickets and discounts cannot be associated with a contactless payment card.
CPAY (contactless pay as you go) is available everywhere an Oyster card is accepted. In addition, it is also available at the following National Rail stations, where Oyster card is not accepted:
As the Oyster card supports a maximum of 15 zones., [18] the stations above are listed as Zone 16 in the fare data, indicating that they are outside the Oyster area. [19] The contactless payment cap doesn't apply on a zonal basis, with caps applied on the basis of individual stations.
The contactless payment used on Luton DART is also CPAY, as evidenced by DART journeys showing up in TfL contactless history, but its fare is separate and not integrated into the remainder of rail network. [20]
In the future, CPAY will be further expanded into a wider area of South East England. 47 new stations were added into the system on 2 February 2025, and a further 49 stations will be added into the system by the end of 2025. [16]
Since the launch of contactless payment in 2012 on buses, and in 2014 on rail, the usage has been steadily increasing apart during the period of COVID-19 pandemic. By October 2022, contactless payment is now used for 71% of tube, rail and bus journeys in London. Further analysis between July and August 2022 showed that 35% of contactless journeys were made using mobile devices, up from 26% before the pandemic. [21]
Transport for London (TfL) is a local government body responsible for most of the transport network in London, United Kingdom.
The Oyster card is a payment method for public transport in London, England, United Kingdom. A standard Oyster card is a blue credit-card-sized stored-value contactless smart card. It is promoted by Transport for London (TfL) and can be used on as part of London's integrated transport network on travel modes including London Buses, London Underground, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), London Overground, Tramlink, some river boat services, and most National Rail services within the London fare zones. Since its introduction in June 2003, more than 86 million cards have been used.
The Travelcard is an inter-modal travel ticket for unlimited use on the London Underground, London Overground, Elizabeth line, Docklands Light Railway, London Trams, London Buses and National Rail services in the Greater London area. Travelcards can be purchased for a period of time varying from one day to a year, from Transport for London, National Rail and their agents. Depending on where it is purchased, and the length of validity, a Travelcard is either printed on a paper ticket with a magnetic stripe or encoded onto an Oyster card, Transport for London's contactless electronic smart card, or an ITSO smartcard issued by a National Rail train operating company. The cost of a Travelcard is determined by the area it covers and, for this purpose, London is divided into a number of fare zones. The Travelcard season ticket for unlimited travel on London Buses and the London Underground was launched on 22 May 1983 by London Transport. One Day Travelcards and validity on other transport modes were added from 1984 onwards. The introduction of the Travelcard caused an increase in patronage and reduced the number of tickets that needed to be purchased by passengers.
Dartford railway station serves the town of Dartford in Kent, England. It is 17 miles 12 chains (27.6 km) down the line from London Charing Cross. Train services from the station are operated by Southeastern and Thameslink. Southeastern also manages the station. Dartford is a major interchange station in the North Kent region of the Southeastern network. Ticket barriers control access to the platforms.
London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus services to TfL, controlled by the Mayor of London.
Freedom Pass is a concessionary travel scheme, which began in 1973, to provide free travel to residents of Greater London, England, for people with a disability or over the progressively increasing state pension age. The scheme is funded by local authorities and coordinated by London Councils. Originally the pass was a paper ticket, but since 2004 it has been encoded on to a contactless smartcard compatible with Oyster card readers, and since 2010, also ITSO card readers.
Rail operators are government-assisted profit-based corporations, fares and ticketing on Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system are aimed to break-even or exceed operating expenses. Rail operators collect fares based on account-based (ABT) and card-based ticketing options, the prices of which are calculated based on the distances travelled between the origin and destination. These prices increase in stages for standard non-concessionary travel, according to the distances travelled. In account-based ticketing, the fare is automatically calculated in the back-end and charged to the passenger post journey. On the other hand, card-based ticketing is proprietary to the transport network and the fare is computed by the system based on the store values recorded in the cards. The public transit system is harmonising towards full ABT.
The London Underground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) metro systems of London, England uses a mix of paper and electronic smart-card ticketing.
A transfer or interchange in the context of public transport refers to the act where you alight a public transport vehicle and board another public transport vehicle.
Opal is a contactless smartcard fare collection system for public transport services in the greater Sydney area. Operation of the Opal system is managed by Transport for NSW. First launched in late 2012, Opal is valid on Transport for NSW's metro, train, bus, ferry and light rail services that operate in Sydney and the neighbouring Central Coast, Hunter Region, Blue Mountains, Illawarra and Southern Highlands areas. Opal equipment was designed from the start to support a variety of cards, but launched with the captive Opal cards.
GO Transit is the inter-regional transportation authority of the Golden Horseshoe, which includes the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. It is Canada's oldest regional transit system, first serving passengers in 1967.
Rail service fares in Greater London and the surrounding area are calculated in accordance with the London fare zones system managed by Transport for London. Within London, all London Underground, National Rail, London Overground, Elizabeth Line and Docklands Light Railway stations are assigned to six fare zones. Fare zone 1 covers the central area and fare zones 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 form concentric rings around it. Some National Rail stations and almost all Transport for London served stations outside Greater London in the home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Surrey are either included in fare zones 4, 5 or 6 or in extended zones beyond these. Transport for London fare zones are also known simply as zones or travelcard zones, referring to their use in calculating prices for the travelcards or pay-as-you-go caps. Before flat fares were introduced in 2004, fare zones were used on the London Buses network. London fare zones are also used for calculating the cost of single and return paper tickets, Oyster card pay-as-you-go fares and season tickets.
Contactless smartcards are being progressively introduced as an alternative option to paper ticketing on the National Rail system of Great Britain. Tickets for use on National Rail services can be loaded onto any ITSO card.
The Key is a contactless ITSO-compatible smartcard developed by the Go-Ahead Group used on buses, trains and other forms of public transport across various areas of the United Kingdom.
MetroCARD is a contactless smartcard ticketing system for public transport services in the Adelaide city and suburbs in South Australia. The system is managed by Adelaide Metro and is usable on their bus, train and tram services.
OMNY is a contactless fare payment system, currently being implemented for use on public transit in the New York metropolitan area. OMNY can currently be used to pay fares at all New York City Subway and Staten Island Railway stations, on all MTA buses, AirTrain JFK, Metro North's Hudson Rail Link, and on the Roosevelt Island Tram; when completely rolled out, it will also replace the MetroCard on Bee-Line buses, and NICE buses. OMNY will also expand beyond the current scope of the MetroCard to include the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad.
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Pay as you go, or PAYG, in the context of public transport, refers to a method of fare collection where the fare is only charged at or after usage, depending on the actual usage, instead of buying a ticket in advance. In such a case, the payment method itself, when validated, is the proof-of-payment, with the actual journey detail not yet known.
Project Oval is a project led by the Department of Transport to expand contactless pay as you go ticketing to National Rail stations in the South East of England.
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