First Group plans to accept NFC payments by 2012 on English buses

The NFC bus is coming to town in England thanks to FirstGroup

FirstGroup, who are the UK’s largest bus firm, have announced that they intend to fit 5,000 FirstGroup buses across England with NFC POS terminals. The firm thinks that this shift in the way passengers pay for their fare could increase journey times by around 10%, which not only saves riders valuable time but probably won’t hurt the company’s fuel bill either.

Banks and credit card companies have been issuing EMV contactless cards in the UK for sometime and NFC phones are gradually becoming more available. Facilities like BarclayCards QuickPay will enable passengers to swipe their card or NFC phone to pay for a fare without requiring a PIN number. The UK has been ahead of the game when it comes to NFC and contactless payments and adoption by institutions and private firms seem to be supporting the growth of cashless payments more and more. The London Underground embraced contactless tickets with their Oyster card sometime ago and now another UK-based public transportation service is following suit.

FirstGroup is investing £27 million to upgrade bus POS terminals to accept contactless NFC or EMV payments

Progression doesn’t come cheap and FirstGroup is ponying up £27 million to perform the upgrades to 5,000 of its British based buses reported the Daily Mirror. The company hopes to extend the new NFC and EMV payment options to buses in Scotland and Wales if the English project goes well. But the method of payments isn’t the only thing that is changing. When the new capability goes live at the backend of 2012, passengers will swipe their phone or card as they get on the bus and will then need to swipe again when they depart from the bus so they can be charged for the exact distance they have traveled.

Should they forget to wave and pay at the end of the journey the new maximum fare will be charged. By then, riders will be able to use buses for the rest of the day without being charged further. The contactless POS terminals will also work with smartcards issued to millions of pensioners as a bus pass.

Buses in the UK are renowned for wanting exact change when you want to ride, so this new system could make that problem a thing of the past and is another step towards a cashless society. Cash isn’t quite dead yet though, and FirstGroup’s bus MD Giles Fearnley said, “We will still accept good, old-fashioned cash but we want people to move to this new way of paying over time.”

Fearnley also said that using tap-and-go cards or NFC phones for payments would save money as there is a daily cap on how much passengers can be charged, regardless of how many journeys they take. Fearnley added, “Some people get on a bus and don’t like asking the driver how much the fare is. This gets over that problem as well as those routes where you need the correct change.”

So, not only does the UK have public transport but it is getting more efficient and will accept NFC technology that will also play nice with EMV contactless cards as from next year. The NFC bus is now a reality and we wonder whether there will be NFC buses running around London by the time the Olympics start with the other London Buses Ltd company.