Nottingham City Transport (NCT) buses are now accepting adult pay-as-you-go contactless payments.
Prior to the official launch on 29 September 2020, over 600 customers trialled the contactless system throughout September, where it reportedly achieved a 96% satisfaction score amongst participants in a post-trial survey.
With exact cash fares required on all NCT bus routes, contactless offers a cashless way for adults to travel. Passengers tap their contactless bank card or mobile device on the card reader as they board each bus and then take their seat.
The system automatically calculates the best fare for a customer based on their journeys each day, with customers travelling around Nottingham guaranteed never to pay more than the NCT all-day ticket price (£4.20). When leaving the bus, there’s no need to tap off.
Overnight the system adds up all of the journeys a customer has made between 04:30-04:29 and deducts the money direct from a customer’s bank account.
Passengers who pay with a contactless card can view their transaction and journey details on the Nottingham Contactless website. Customers who pay for their journeys on their mobile phone or smart watch can check their Apple Pay or Google Pay account to view transaction details.
NCT marketing and communications director, Nicola Tidy, said: “The launch of adult pay-as-you-go contactless payments on NCT buses offers our customers another cashless, convenient way to pay for their bus journeys.
“By simply tapping their contactless card or device on the bus each time they board, the contactless system does the hard work by adding up their journeys and charging customers based on their journeys during the day.”
Contactless for other ticket types, such as students, groups, under-19s, short hops, and dog tickets, are to be made available in the next phase.
NCT is the first operator in Nottingham to offer contactless payments as part of the ‘Nottingham Contactless’ scheme, with the city council’s Linkbus and NET trams to follow.
According to NCT, once all operators are on board by early 2021, Nottingham Contactless will be the UK’s first multi-modal and multi-operator contactless system outside of London.
The Nottingham Contactless project is supported by Nottingham City Council, which secured £2.4m from the UK Department for Transport’s National Productivity Investment Fund to develop the system to process contactless payments.
The system has been developed and delivered by INIT, a long-term partner in delivering ticketing and real-time bus tracking information to NCT.
