It’s the swift and simple solution that’s soon to make travel easier across Yorkshire – and now customers travelling on Transdev buses across York and North Yorkshire are to be the first in the region to trial “tap and go” contactless fare capping.
 
Bus operator Transdev – the company behind the popular Cityzap, Coastliner and York & Country services from York – already offers contactless card payments on all its buses across the North of England.
 
The bus operator is now to conduct its own tests of ‘tap and go’ contactless ticketing, which allows unlimited free travel once a set fare is reached, starting from 7th April 2019 on all routes run by its York and Malton depots.
 
Transdev is inviting volunteers to test the system for the first time and it’s offering a unique incentive for customers who take part – a free weekly ticket as a thank you for joining in the trials. 
 
A successful competitive bid to fund the trials was submitted by Transdev for £50,000 from strategic transport body Transport for the North’s ‘Innovation Initiative’ package, created to deliver early benefits and opportunities to introduce new smart travel technology.
  
Transdev CEO Alex Hornby said: “I’m very proud that we will be the first bus operator to bring contactless capping to buses in the North of England - and that our customers on Coastliner, Cityzap and our network radiating from York will be the first to experience its benefits. 

“Our customers will be able to tap in and tap out and not worry that they are paying the wrong fare – they will be able to keep going and stop paying, as we’ll cap the amount spent as soon as they reach the best value day or weekly ticket price.

“It’s really important that our customers help us with their feedback before its widespread introduction too, as we lead into a successful launch that we believe will take down a potential barrier to bus travel for new users, whilst making our buses even easier to use for our current customers.”

“Contactless fare capping offers immense potential to make travel easier, better value and more reliable as it speeds up the time it takes to board the bus. These trials will help us to choose the most efficient, reliable and effective system to roll out this amazing technology further.”

Customers who join us for the trial won’t need to choose a specific type of ticket before they board the bus. Instead, they’ll simply ‘tap on’ and ‘tap off’ using their contactless payment card at the start and finish of their journey, while their daily fares will be capped at £10 for all day travel between Leeds and York or £17 per day and £37 per week across our whole network. This is based on the cost of a Daytripper Plus or Gold weekly ticket which offers unlimited travel on all our buses across the North.
  
Customers who would like to join the trial can find full details of how to take part on the bus operator’s website at: http://www.yorkbus.co.uk.