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In big news for thrifty Londoners who don’t want to have to carry around both a bank card and an Oyster card to get discounted travel, TfL and Sadiq Khan are (finally) discussing integrating railcard discounts with contactless payment.
Londoners with 16-25, 26-30, Senior, HM Forces, Veterans or Disabled Railway railcards can currently only use their discounts on the tube, Overground and TfL Rail if they link them with an Oyster card. They also have to hunt down staff members at tube stations to initially link their Oyster card with these perks.
In an effort to make train travel more convenient, the new integration would allow card holders to receive their one-third discount rates and reduced daily ‘caps’ with a simple mobile phone app or contactless bank card instead of having to carry an Oyster.
The news comes after Green group leader of the London Assembly, Caroline Russell wrote to Khan asking if there were any future plans to update the Oyster card by making it available digitally, or if there was a plan to ever add the railcard discounts to contactless cards.
The former head of customer payments at TfL, Mike Tuckett, told MyLondon: ‘Due to the design of the contactless system, it’s not currently possible to associate concessions and discounts to contactless bank cards.’
While there’s still no word on if and when the integration would happen, Khan’s office responded: ‘TfL is working closely with the Department for Transport and Rail Delivery Group to progress work to allow us to implement this in the future as part of our wider work to expand pay as you go with contactless in the southeast.’
In the meantime, a bunch more train stations near London are getting contactless payment, including Stansted airport.
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