Starting next year, Transport for London (TfL) will make the move to accepting contactless payments. It is curently in the process of installing near-field communication (NFC) readers across its network of buses and underground trains. Brian Dobson, manager of technology and systems for TfL's Future Ticketing Project said:
"We are now in a position to say that if people come along with a contactless credit or debit card application on their mobile, we can accept it as an NFC payment in 2012. NFC will work on our new systems from the time that we are able to accept contactless cards."
However, the time a contactless payment takes has raised issues. During peak hours on the underground system TfL has strict speed requirements. The current minimum speed is 350 milliseconds but current NFC payments technology takes around 500 milliseconds. Having made this known to card companies, TfL is now looking at cards which may become available between 2012 and 2014 and which will meet the speed requirement. For now, TfL says that contactless transaction speed are acceptable for low-volume periods.
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