London opens up Oyster role

Londoners will be able to use a single smartcard for travelling and making contactless payments for low-value items as early as this summer, Computing can reveal.

New Oyster cards will be issued as a result of a deal between Barclaycard, Visa and Transport for London (TfL) signed last month (Computing, 21 December).

The cards will have a dual interface chip to manage credit card and contactless payments under £10, and to make and manage Oyster travel transactions.

Successful trials of the card have been conducted with between 60 and 80 Barclaycard staff who used the card to travel and to pay for items in the firm’s cafeteria by waving it over a reader.

Speaking exclusively to Computing, Barclaycard’s contactless programme manager Simon Chick says the trial will be extended in March to more than 2,000 staff at Barclaycard, TfL and TranSys, the IT consortium that delivers Oyster, before being made available to the public later this year.

‘By the third quarter we hope to roll out the cards to the public and upgrade the tills at London retailers to identify contactless payments,’ he said.

TranSys chief executive John Stout says testing of the end-to-end functionality with the Barclaycard staff has worked well.

‘We are applying the same principles we used when introducing Oyster initially – a phased rollout to ensure people understood the technology,’ he said. ‘This will eventually put Oyster into the hands of more people.’

A TfL spokesman says the deal will improve passengers’ experience by offering the convenience of one card instead of two for credit card and Oyster payments.

‘Passengers will be able to make purchases in the same quick and easy way that they use Oyster, speeding up journey time and reducing queueing time,’ he said.

However, he says TfL has not given up on its own plans to add electronic money to Oyster despite a technical assessment last year that concluded it is not yet economic (Computing, 2 May 2006).

London Travelwatch spokeswoman Jo Debank says the organisation will support the initiative, but that Oyster is first and foremost for travel, and TfL must ensure glitches do not slow users when boarding the tube or bus.

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Further reading

Barclaycard agrees smartcard deal

Transport for London pulls plug on e-money

Visa to trial contactless payments