An eight week consultation has been launched on plans to make London Tramlink completely “cashless”. The proposal would see all existing cash ticket machines removed from tramstops with passengers asked to use Oyster or go contactless instead.
The ticket machines were installed when the network opened and are reaching the end of their useful life. Coupled with the low number of tickets purchased on the machines it is felt that it is no longer cost effective for TfL to main them or have them replaced.
Only 0.3% of single tram journeys are paid for with a ticket bought from a ticket machine, equating to fewer than 250 tickets a day, with more than half of these sold from 10 tram stops.
Rory O’Neil, Director of London Trams, commented: “`Most tram customers use pay as you go with Oyster or contactless to travel, which is cheaper than paper tickets and also allows customers to use the Mayor’s new ‘Hopper’ fare to make two bus or tram journeys within an hour for the price of one. As very few ticket sales are made using ticket machines, we are asking local people and stakeholders if they think cash ticket machines should be removed altogether.”
The consultation runs until 29th October and can be found at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cashless-trams. A decision will be made early in 2018.
What does a visitor without an Oyster Card do? Walk or go by taxi? There are car parks in Cambridge where the machines have been taken away this year and one is supposed to download an app on a smartphone and pay that way. Their use has declined greatly.
If a visitor does not have an Oyster card, then they can easily use a contactless card which the majority of debit and credit cards are today. From personal observations this year on 2 visits to London, most tourists already have an Oyster card because the LondonPass uses these. Other “out of town” visitors used contactless. Much cheaper than paper tickets and on the buses they have to do this already.