- £20 million of government funding marks the first phase of the government's commitment to extend Pay As You Go to a further 200 stations in the South East
- the department is also working with Great British Railways transition team (GBRTT) to agree Pay As You Go pilots in the Greater Manchester and the West Midlands by the end of the year
- both form part of the government's plan to make fares and ticketing simpler and more convenient for passengers
Passengers across the South East from Shepperton to Shoeburyness will benefit from simpler, more flexible and better value train travel as the next 53 stations set to introduce tap-in tap-out ticketing by the end of the year are confirmed.
Thanks to £20 million funding from the government, the use of bank cards or smart device to tap-in to travel will be made available for tens of thousands of passengers across the South East. Customers will no longer have to worry about planning ahead to get the best prices or fumbling on their phones and wallets to find the right ticket - instead they can use their bank card or smart device to just tap-in on the reader knowing they will automatically be guaranteed the best price available on the day of travelling.
Pay As You Go is already available at over 350 stations across London and the South East stretching from Reading and Gatwick Airport all the way to Shenfield and Welwyn Garden City. Today's (4 July 2023) announcement, in partnership with Transport for London (TfL), C2C, Southeastern, South Western Railway, London Northwestern, and Chiltern, will see the total number of tap-in-tap-out stations in England jump to over 400 by the end of the year.
This follows the Transport Secretary's commitment in his George Bradshaw address to reform and overhaul fares and ticketing across Britain's railways, making them simpler and more flexible across the network. In just the last few months the government has been getting on with this reform, such as announcing the headquarters of Great British Railways (GBR) and extended single-leg pricing across all of LNER's network.
By encouraging more people to use our railways through simpler and more convenient ticketing, the government is helping to not only bring our railways into the 21st Century but enable more people to travel for work and pleasure, in turn helping to deliver on our priority to grow the economy.
Rail Minister Huw Merriman said:
One of the best ways to get more people using our railways is to make journeys as simple, flexible and convenient as possible and the government's programme for rail reform prioritises exactly that.
By removing the stress of finding the best deal in advance or having the right ticket ready to go at the barriers, the extension of tap-in tap-out ticketing is the next step of our plan for rail reform and we're working towards Pay As You Go being rolled out beyond the South East through the Midlands and up to the North.
Pay As You Go is widely used across London and the surrounding area with TfL data showing that more than 75% of all Tube and rail Pay As You Go journeys regularly made using contactless payment cards or mobile devices, compared to 25% in 2016.
Following on from this rise in popularity, the department is continuing its work with the GBR transition team to extend Pay As You Go in the Midlands and the North, as part of Trailblazer devolution deals announced earlier this year with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
Transport for Greater Manchester just last week announced
