Money can't buy you love and
from July 6 coins won't get you a ticket on one of these. Today Transport for London (TfL) announced that the driver/operators on their buses will no longer accept cash. For some time there has been a strong disincentive to do so; exact change has to be tendered and the fare is doubled. Some central London buses currently do not accept cash but individual tickets can be purchases at on-street vending machines for those who do not already have an "Oyster" card.
From July 6 there will only be two methods of payment.
The Oyster card is a contactless NFC card used by TfL to hold season ticket data or as a "cashless wallet" to pay for single trips. If used as a "pay as you go" card, there is a daily limit for off-peak travel which depends on the fare zones you enter unless you only use buses. Season tickets and top-ups of the cash available can be purchased at most rail stations and at many local corner stores.
The only alternative will be a contactless payment card. NFC/chip and pin cards are the standard format of debit and credit cards in the UK now and carry a logo of four vertical curved lines increasing in size from left to right. The TfL site is unclear whether all foreign issued contactless payment cards will work from July 6 as the TfL page explaining their introduction last year appears to be out of date. Amex cards will. Visa/Vpay "expects them to be accepted" for payment of fares "in the near future" however Mastercard/Maestro cards may prove a problem for American visitors:
Nearly all MasterCard and Maestro contactless payment cards issued outside the UK will be accepted. The majority of cards that won’t be accepted are issued in the USA and Canada. There are also a few other cards that may not be accepted. If you experience this, please contact your card issuer
At the moment there is no daily cap for off-peak travel although this is promised in the future. Oyster cards are therefore the idea. For clarity, rail travel on London Underground, London Overground and most main line services within London are charged according to which zone or zones you travel through. These are arranged as concentric rings starting with Zone1 in the center, shown as different color backgrounds on
this .pdf map.
If you do travel to London and use an Oyster or other card on trains, remember to "tap-in and tap-out" at the start and end of your journey. Some interchanges may also require you to tap on a registration pad to make sure you pay the right fare. It is possible to use different routes from one station to another and pass through different or a different number of fare zones. As an example: to travel from Canada Water to Clapham South, you can either use two Underground lines passing through zones 1 and 2, changing at London Bridge; however it is also possible to use the Overground and change from Clapham High Street to Clapham North. They are an interchange about 100 metres from each other. That route avoids zone 1.
On a wider point, most big supermarket chains are rolling out contactless payment machines. These take "chip and pin" cards and you can, if necessary swipe one with only a magnet stripe on the back. You will however need to tap in your PIN for the last two methods. The idea behind the contactless payment is that is only for small amounts with a daily limit to avoid fraud if you lose your card.
Could such a move be undertaken in the USA? There does seem to be a very conservative view of new technology and payments including for example a continued dependence on paper checks. Debit cards have replaced these in the UK - to the extent that most stores refuse to accept them. Your view?