Oyster export deal will help London fares freeze

It now maintains TfL’s fare collection systems, and was the technology contractor for TfL’s in-house development of contactless bank card payment which was rolled out in 2012-14. It’s now possible that passengers in Sydney, Brisbane, Vancouver and Chicago, where CTS also operates, will soon enjoy the same freedom of travel.

Contactless works with iOS and Android phones and their respective owners’ payment systems, while also taking payments from chip-enabled bankcards.

Overall, TfL claims its system processes 31 million journeys each day – hapless commuters, suburbanites, massive school parties and many others all moving through the capital’s bowels on varied missions.

‘I made a firm commitment to sell TfL’s expertise around the globe.

In the last two years alone more than 500m journeys have been made with 12m credit and debit cards.

Cubic already provides fares and IT solutions to the New York MTA and its deal with TfL appears to put it in a good place to extend that tie-up because, as a condition of the contract, TfL has agreed to not licence the platform to any rival in the New York tender.

The company first worked with TfL in 2003 to develop the technology behind Oyster and has since helped upgrade the system to support contactless payments from debit cards, Apple Pay and Android Pay.

The deal – worth up to $15 million – gives specialist vendor Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) access to London’s contactless system, allowing it to be specifically tailored for other world cities’ transport needs. Around one in 10 contactless transactions in the United Kingdom are made on TfL’s network, making it one of the largest contactless merchants worldwide.

“No single entity has all the answers and this agreement between Cubic and TfL sets a new standard in public/private partnerships for addressing these issues, and acknowledges the success of account-based payment for transit for which there is clear interest from many cities across the world”.