The London to Essex train operator, c2c has confirmed that it will be able to offer London-style contactless payments in all its stations by the end of this year.
Contactless pay as you go “tap in and tap out” is already accepted at c2c stations in the London pay as you go area – as far east as Upminster and Grays, and the remaining 15 c2c stations will be added by the end of this year. It’s all part of a Department for Transport (DfT) funded scheme to expand the London style contactless payment system outside London to the broader southeast of England.
In total, around 200 stations will get the contactless payment option, with 53 stations due to go live this year. Train operator c2c has confirmed that its upgrade is close to completion.
c2c Managing Director, Rob Mullen, said: Rob added: “We know that customers have recently experienced issues with the c2c app, purchasing smartcards and at our ticket machines, and while we have worked hard to fix these issues as quickly as possible, we know this isn’t good enough. Ensuring we have a reliable retail offering is of utmost importance, and as part of our ongoing commitment to making c2c a more attractive and comfortable railway for all, I believe that the introduction of contactless pay as you go across our entire network – giving customers greater choice, flexibility and simple and easy to understand ticketing and payment options – will make travelling with c2c better and easier than ever before.”
The £20 million rollout is being funded by the DfT and carried out by TfL with the provision of in-station validation equipment carried out by Cubic Transportation Systems, who already provide the same kit to TfL.
Besides c2c, the other participating train operating companies are Southeastern, South Western Railway, London Northwestern, and Chiltern.
Full list of stations that will have Pay As You Go technology by the end of this year:
- Apsley
- Ashford (Surrey)
- Basildon
- Bat & Ball
- Beaconsfield
- Benfleet
- Berkhamsted
- Bletchley
- Bricket Wood
- Chalkwell
- Cheddington
- Datchet
- Denham
- Denham Golf Club
- Dunton Green
- East Tilbury
- Egham
- Eynsford
- Garston
- Gerrards Cross
- Hemel Hempstead
- High Wycombe
- How Wood
- Kempton Park
- Kings Langley
- Laindon
- Leigh-on-Sea
- Leighton Buzzard
- Otford
- Park Street
- Pitsea
- Seer Green & Jordans
- Sevenoaks
- Shepperton
- Shoeburyness
- Shoreham (Kent)
- Southend Central
- Southend East
- St Albans Abbey
- Staines
- Stanford-le-Hope
- Sunbury
- Sunnymeads
- Thorpe Bay
- Tilbury Town
- Tring
- Upper Halliford
- Virginia Water
- Watford North
- West Horndon
- Westcliff
- Windsor & Eton Riverside
- Wraysbury
Do we know if the PAYG technology used by Thameslink is somehow different? Just noticed that their stations are excluded from the list, so it’s not really a full list.
Would be nice if the yellow pads at Thameslink stations could be upgraded to support contactless payments. Think they were originally established for their Key smartcards.
It looks like the now have ‘KeyGo’ which can be set up these cards, which appears to be their only attempt at contactless payments and works with some railcards. Notably though it can’t be used at Peterborough or Cambridge, which slightly limits its use.
Personally I’d prefer to be able to use my normal contactless payment methods and for that to support railcard discounts. Hopefully it would be too difficult for those to be upgraded. Would really also need the terminating stations that currently don’t support ‘the Key’ to get a similar upgrade to support contactless payments.
Carl Toffle – It’s only the Cubic/TfL system that handles contactless PAYG in London and SE England. I think it’s primarily a commercial issue (fare levels, revenue share etc) as opposed to technological.
The 53 stations listed constitute Phase 1 of the expansion; there are another 180 stations (give or take) to come in Phase 2 as things currently stand.
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Keith – North-of-London contactless PAYG on Thameslink is currently available to Luton Airport (DART included) and Welwyn Garden City. Bedford and Cambridge are proposed for inclusion in Phase 2 of the contactless PAYG expansion (as are Railcard discounts), but that’s probably 20-ish months away at present.
The stations up towards Luton (including the Luton Airport DART) were added to the (same) system over a year ago as well as the Thames Valley branches on GWR. The list of 53 stations is a list of the new ones that will be coming on board by the end of this year.
So what do railcard holders do?
I use Oyster as it has senior railcard on it, wheras contactless doesn’t, but Oyster isn’t being extended and Travelcards are being abolished…
Carry on as you currently do – you’re not being forced to switch to contactless if you don’t want to.
There are plans to enable Railcard discounts when Phase 2 of the contactless PAYG expansion takes place in the medium term (2025, I think).
@Edvid: The trickiest railcard to get contactless to work with will be the Two Together Railcard.
The only way I can see that working is if that railcard gave each named person their own ID, and login where they could store their payment cards. Then finding some way for the system to detect matching journeys, to apply the discount to both users.
Has a lot of scope for errors, which is why I expect it’ll be the last to be resolved. In the meantime it’s paper and digit tickets only for those travellers.
What about (off peak) day returns? Don’t those journeys cost more as two single contactless even at off peak fares?