The Go-Ahead Group, one of the big five privately owned public bus operators in the UK, said today it has seen cash usage on board the nearly 3,000 buses it runs in England outside of London fall to 23% of transactions, down from 53% three years ago.
The company attributed the large drop in part to the Covid-19 pandemic, which it said “accelerated” the shift away from cash across the UK economy. It noted that cash payments throughout the country fell by 35% during 2020, according to trade association UK Finance, compared with a 15% annual drop before the pandemic.
Go-Ahead said digital payments technologies, such as contactless EMV, combined with fare-capping, have also encouraged more customers to dispense with cash. Contactless, either with credit and debit cards or card credentials on NFC devices, now accounts for 41% of bus trips outside of London for the operator, Go-Ahead told NFC Times sister publication Mobility Payments. That’s up from around 30% of transactions in March 2020–when the first lockdown began–and an increase from only 16% in August 2018. Other digital payments, such as closed-loop contactless cards, make up most of the rest of current transactions.
