All sorts of questions are being raised. Maybe the fundamental issue with a contactless PAYG system is that it has no idea what your final destination(s) are until you finish the day. Take a trip up to London from (say) Martins Heron. You tap in at the start, then do various tube/train/bus trips while up town, finally tapping out when you get back to Martins Heron. Will the system be clever enough to charge you the travel card rate or a trip up to Waterloo and various tube trips if that works out the cheaper option? And of course adding the correct railcard discount?
I am not fundamentally against the contactless system, after all it works quite well on the tube, but there are too many unknowns with such a blind tap in tap out system when extended to the wider network.
I am not fundamentally against the contactless system, after all it works quite well on the tube, but there are too many unknowns with such a blind tap in tap out system when extended to the wider network.