Harry Rosehill

Contactless Has Overtaken The Oyster Card (Probably)

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Photo: Shutterstock

The future is now: contactless has eclipsed Oyster... probably.

Allow us to explain. Data charting the use of contactless on public transport — from its introduction in 2014 up until mid-2018 — shows that the format has been catching up quickly on the Oyster Card. Take a look at the graph below for proof.

In June 2018, 71,825,630 journeys were made with the Oyster Card compared to 66,346,051 by contactless. So the difference was just over five million. That might sound like a lot, but when you consider that's number of journeys rather than number of people, then it becomes clear that it's not an insurmountable gap.

Furthermore, that Oyster Card figure is unlikely to remain stable. Contactless is eating its user base. Back in April 2015, over 100 million journeys were made with Oyster in one month, showing just how much the format has fallen. Contactless meanwhile is on the rise. Paymentsense has calculated that a billion contactless journeys will be made in London in 2019, and expects that number to jump to 1.55 billion by 2025.

Are the Oyster Card's days numbered? Photo: Shutterstock

Data past June 2018 is yet to be released by TfL, but if the ascent of contactless continued at the same rate, and Oyster usage continued to fall, that means that there are currently more journeys being made using contactless than Oyster. From the data available, that's highly probably, although not certain. Perhaps there's been a huge Oyster revival that began in late 2018 — after all, Adidas released a shoe styled on the famous card. Maybe that sparked something.

The ascent of contactless will be bolstered if and when customers can link their travelcards to bank cards and smartphone payment apps. This move has been mooted for a while, but is yet to come to fruition.

The rise of contactless once again raises the question: how much time does the Oyster Card have left?