In the last 12 months, passenger journeys on high speed services between St Pancras International and Stratford International have increased by 72 percent. Train operating company Southeastern and Transport for London (TfL) put the phenomenal rise down to the July 2015 introduction of Pay As You Go with Oyster and contactless payment systems at the Southeastern managed platforms. 

The high speed service provided by Southeastern is the quickest way to travel from central London to the Westfield shopping centre and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Southeastern’s Commercial Director, Mike Boden said: “It's excellent to be able to give passengers the choice of using these methods of payment to travel between these key London stations. We recognise that paper tickets aren’t always the best option for all of our passengers and we’re really pleased we’ve been able to work with TfL to provide further options for people to travel across London.”
Figures show that more than 250,000 of the journeys made between the stations in the last 12 months, including over 30,000 of the journeys made in June 2016, were made on an Oyster or contactless payment card.

Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer and Director of Customer Experience at TfL said “Our aim is to provide customers with greater convenience and value by extending Oyster and contactless payment to even more destinations in and around London. It is great that, together with Southeastern, we have been able to deliver these outcomes for journeys on this service.”