Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information his Department holds on the passengers who use contactless cards to pay for their journey; and what steps his Department is taking to encourage the introduction of contactless cards on the network outside of London.

The Department is working actively with bus, train and other transport operators across the UK to develop the use and liability models that will allow greater adoption of contactless bankcard payments on public transport outside of London, which already has contactless in operation across its network.

This collaborative working has already started to deliver real world implementations. For example on Stagecoach buses in Oxford and in the North East passengers can now pay for their travel with their contactless cards. Other operators are not far behind. On rail, the Secretary of State has announced his intention that all passengers should have the option of a smart ticket by the end of 2018.

However the Department does not hold detailed information on the use of contactless payments outside of London‎.