CPAY is the codename of the contactless payment system operated by Transport for London in and around London.CPAY Agreement, Transport for London It does not have a public facing brand name and is simply known as pay as you go by contactless by the public. The model has been copied around the world.
History
In 2014, Transport for London became the first public transport provider in the world to accept payment from contactless bank cards. TfL first started accepting contactless debit and credit cards on London Buses on 13 December 2012, expanding to the Underground, Tram and the Docklands Light Railway in September 2014. Since 2016, contactless payment can also take place using contactless-enabled mobile devices such as phones and smartwatches, using Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
TfL designed and coded the contactless payment system in-house, at a cost of £11million, after realising existing commercial solutions were inflexible or too focused on retail use. Since the launch of contactless payment in 2012, over 500 million journeys have been made, using over 12 million contactless bank cards. Consequently, TfL is now one of Europe's largest contactless merchants, with around 1 in 10 contactless transactions in the UK taking place on the TfL network.
In 2016, TfL licensed their contactless payment system to Cubic, the original developers of the Oyster card, allowing the technology to be sold to other transport providers worldwide. In 2017, licensing deals were signed with New York City, New South Wales and Boston.
The same requirement to touch in and out on underground services applies to contactless cards. The same price capping that applies to the use of Oyster cards applies to the use of contactless cards (provided the same card is used for the day's journeys). The fare paid every day is settled with the bank and appears on the debit or credit card statement. Detailed usage data is written to Transport for London's systems and is available for customers who register their contactless cards with Transport for London. Unlike an Oyster card, a contactless card does not store credit (beyond the holder's credit limit) and there is no need or facility to add credit to the card.
In August 2019 Brookmans Park railway station was the first contactless-only addition to the pay as you go area. All subsequent additions located beyond fare zones 1-9 have followed suit.
Features Although the use of a contactless payment card for travel is exactly the same as an Oyster card, as a contactless card cannot be written into, they work differently in the background.
An Oyster card stores the balance in the card itself, and records all the touches made in the card. It can also store discounts and season tickets as well. None of the above is possible with a contactless payment card, therefore all the fare calculations are done in batch on the back end, after all the touches in a day are aggregated from the readers.
Daily and weekly capping Like an Oyster card, contactless cards offer daily capping. However, the capping on Oyster cards are done in real-time, with the zones used stored inside the card, which is not possible on contactless. As the fares are calculated in batch by the back end for contactless cards, cheaper non-zonal caps may be available on contactless cards for certain stations.
In addition, due to how Oyster system works, if you start from zone 6 for one journey into zone 1, then stay within zone 1 all day, the Oyster system will charge you up to the zones 1-6 cap, but on contactless, if the zones 1-2 cap plus the single extension from zone 6 is cheaper, it will charge that instead since the back end looks for the whole day of the journey history and charges as a batch.
Contactless cards also offer weekly capping as well, which was not available initially on Oyster due to the real-time nature and the information stored on the card.
Since 27 September 2021, the back end processing used for contactless payments has also been applied on adult-rate Oyster cards, which enables weekly capping for these cards as well. Any overcharging compared to a contactless payment card, like the scenarios described above, will be refunded automatically to the Oyster card.
Unpaid fares As the amount to be charged isn't known after travelling, at first use of a card, a pre-authorisation of £0.10 is requested on the card to check if it is valid. If the actual fare requested after the day is declined, the card is temporarily blocked for use until the unpaid fare is paid.
Use
The use of a contactless payment card by travellers is exactly the same as with an Oyster card. However, unlike an Oyster card, a contactless payment card can only be used for paying as you go at the adult rate. Season tickets and discounts cannot be associated with a contactless payment card.
Coverage Existing CPAY (contactless pay as you go) is available everywhere an Oyster card is accepted. In addition, it is available at the following National Rail stations, where Oyster card is not accepted:
Station Local authority Managed by Valid from Notes Dacorum London Northwestern Railway Spelthorne South Western Railway Mole Valley Southern also served by South Western Railway Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways North Hertfordshire Great Northern Basildon c2c Sevenoaks Southeastern Only served by Thameslink Chelmsford Greater Anglia Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Castle Point c2c Dacorum London Northwestern Railway Basildon Greater Anglia East Hertfordshire also served by Stansted Express Milton Keynes London Northwestern Railway Buckinghamshire Great Western Railway Mole Valley Southern also served by South Western Railway St Albans London Northwestern Railway Welwyn Hatfield Great Northern Slough Elizabeth line Southend-on-Sea c2c Buckinghamshire London Northwestern Railway Chelmsford Greater Anglia Windsor & Maidenhead Great Western Railway South Western Railway Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Mole Valley Southern also served by South Western Railway Tandridge Sevenoaks Southeastern Mid Sussex Southern Thurrock c2c Runnymede South Western Railway Sevenoaks Southeastern Only served by Thameslink Windsor & Maidenhead Great Western Railway Watford London Northwestern Railway Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Central Bedfordshire Thameslink Harlow Greater Anglia also served by Stansted Express St Albans Thameslink Welwyn Hatfield Great Northern also served by Thameslink Braintree Greater Anglia Dacorum London Northwestern Railway South Oxfordshire Great Western Railway Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways North Hertfordshire Great Northern Rochford Greater Anglia St Albans London Northwestern Railway Tandridge Southern Brentwood Greater Anglia Buckinghamshire Elizabeth line Spelthorne South Western Railway Three Rivers London Northwestern Railway North Hertfordshire Great Northern Basildon c2c Slough Elizabeth line Luton Thameslink Mole Valley Southern also served by South Western Railway Southend-on-Sea c2c Central Bedfordshire London Northwestern Railway North Hertfordshire Great Northern Tandridge Southern Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Luton Thameslink also served by East Midlands Railway Windsor & Maidenhead Great Western Railway also served by Elizabeth line Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Sevenoaks Southeastern Also served by Thameslink Tandridge Southern St Albans London Northwestern Railway Basildon c2c Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Southend-on-Sea Greater Anglia Rochford Reading Network Rail Pay-as-you-go only valid on Great Western Railway and Elizabeth line services Reigate and Banstead Southern Also served by GWR Rochford Greater Anglia Epping Forest Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways East Hertfordshire Greater Anglia Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Sevenoaks Southeastern Also served by Thameslink Spelthorne South Western Railway South Oxfordshire Great Western Railway Southend-on-Sea c2c Sevenoaks Southeastern Only served by Thameslink Slough Great Western Railway also served by Elizabeth line Rochford London Southend Airport served by Greater Anglia Southend-on-Sea c2c Greater Anglia St Albans London Northwestern Railway Thameslink Spelthorne South Western Railway Thurrock c2c Uttlesford Greater Anglia also served by Stansted Express. Not valid on CrossCountry. also served by Stansted Express Stevenage Great Northern Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Spelthorne South Western Railway Windsor & Maidenhead Buckinghamshire Elizabeth line Southend-on-Sea c2c Thurrock Dacorum London Northwestern Railway Wokingham Great Western Railway also served by Elizabeth line Spelthorne South Western Railway Runnymede Wokingham Great Western Railway Watford London Northwestern Railway East Hertfordshire Great Northern Welwyn Hatfield also served by Thameslink Buckinghamshire Chiltern Railways Brentwood c2c Southend-on-Sea Basildon Greater Anglia Windsor & Maidenhead Great Western Railway South Western Railway Braintree Greater Anglia Tandridge Southern Windsor & Maidenhead South Western Railway
As the Oyster card supports a maximum of 15 zonesTRU112, page 11, Transport for London the stations above are listed as zone 16 in the fares data, indicating they are outside the Oyster area.FOI-1501-1920, Freedom of Information Request, Transport for London CPAY journeys from those stations are only capped for travel to Zones 1-6, 1-8 or 1-9.
The contactless payment system is also used to collect fares for journeys on the Luton DART, which can be reviewed on the TfL contactless portal but are not integrated with other journeys for fares purposes.
Future
Expansion of the CPAY area is currently being undertaken through a scheme named Project Oval. As of March 2026, 103 stations have been added through this scheme and the next tranche of stations (including 23 operated by Southeastern) is scheduled to go live later in 2026.
Usage statistics Since the launch of contactless payment in 2012 on buses, and in 2014 on rail, the usage has been steadily increasing apart during the period of COVID-19 pandemic. By October 2022, contactless payment is now used for 71% of tube, rail and bus journeys in London. Further analysis between July and August 2022 showed that 35% of contactless journeys were made using mobile devices, up from 26% before the pandemic.
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