It’s been coming for a while, but now a date has been set. You’ll no longer be able to use cash to pay for bus fares as from Sunday July 6th from this year. You will either have to use an Oyster card, or a bank card that also works as a contactless card, that will charge the same ‘cash’ fare as an Oyster card.
What happens if a contactless bank card fails to work though? In our experience, we see plenty of people wave an Oyster card at the reader on a bus, but it gives the error-beep rather than the ‘happy beep’ and the driver in most cases does nothing about it and the person rides the bus anyway. Will it be easier to say ‘Oh my bank card should work’ and pretend a non-contactless card is a contactless one, as there are many differing designs of bank cards, but Oyster cards all look the same.
Contactless on buses