Category: Government

40% Of London Public Transport Customers Now Using Contactless Cards

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The latest Transport for London (TfL) figures show that 40% of public transport customers in London are paying for their journeys with contactless payment cards.

This represents a 25% increase in contactless use for all journeys since last year and the convenience and speed of using contactless has seen people moving away from pay-as-you-go Oyster Cards.

1 Billion ‘Contactless’ Journeys

Since the introduction of contactless payment cards in 2012 on buses and in 2014 on the tube and London Overground, the use of contactless payment cards recorded a billion journeys.

Contactless technology enables users to ‘tap and pay’ without entering a PIN for items or services up to £30 at a time, and the TFL figures show that payment using contactless now averages two million journeys every day, and one in ten journeys is paid for using contactless payment technology on mobile devices.

World Leader

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been reported as saying that the figures show the global lead that London now has in the use of contactless, and how the revenue generated from selling TfL’s technology to other major global cities will be used to further improve London’s own transport network.

Boost For Tourism & Leisure Too

It is not just London’s daily workers who are finding the contactless system easy and convenient. Tourism and leisure in London is also thought to be benefiting from this system of payment as it simplifies travel for all.

x001-00081-buses-contactless-payment_rdax_400x200More Capacity – More Contactless

It has been reported that TfL will be introducing contactless payment options for the Elizabeth Line when it is fully opened in East London by December 2019. The Elizabeth line will increase central London’s rail capacity by 10% and will carry over half a million passengers each day, many of whom look likely to be using contactless for their journeys. The line is also designed to help deal with the increase in demand for public transport as London’s growing population is set to rise from 8.6m to around 10m by 2030.

Digital Rather Than Contactless Cards In Future

Some tech commentators have pointed out that digital payments using mobile devices will soon be taking over from contactless cards. Boston Consulting Group figures show that 20% of all consumer payments will be digital by 2021 (four times more than today), and just over half of that will be touch-and-go payments.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This story is an example of how the ease and convenience of contactless technology is benefitting businesses and their customers, and how cash, traditional debit card transactions, and pre-paid card systems are likely to decline as a result. Projected figures from payments industry trade body ‘Payments UK’ for example, have shown that as soon as next year, more payments will be made using debit cards than using cash, and this is being fuelled by contactless technology.

For businesses, contactless payments can mean increased average transaction values (ATV), more footfall, a reduction in the costs and hassle of handling cash, and reduced business risks due to having a clear audit trail and assured payment.

Fibre Broadband, Government’s Scheme Launched With £400m

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The long-expected launch of the UK government’s plans to improve broadband speeds for homes and businesses by replacing copper phone wires with fibre-optic cable has been launched with a £400 million investment from the Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund.

Not Full-Fibre For Most Properties

Although the aim is ‘full-fibre’, this first stage is intended to replace the copper cable that runs from individual properties to the roadside cabinets / green boxes at the end of the street. This means that most of the infrastructure for broadband, for the time being, will actually be ‘hybrid fibre’.

Full-fibre (where cables from the box are fibre-optic too) could potentially deliver multi-Gigabit speeds faster than 1000Mbps, but full-fibre is currently only available to 2% of UK premises (despite 89% of UK premises now being within reach of a fixed line superfast broadband service). This does not compare well to other European countries. In Spain for example, 80% of premises have full-fibre access.

Even Faster

The government’s focus until now has been to provide ‘super-fast’ broadband speed (24Mbps or more), but the government’s plans to start replacing copper with fibre-optic is intended to produce ‘ultra-fast’ broadband (anything over 100Mbps).

Two Technologies Together

There are in-fact two technologies which are being deployed to help the UK to work towards ultra-fast broadband. One is fibre, the other is BT’ Openreach’s G.fast which can get high speeds (330Mbits) using a copper wire system. It is cheap to install because it can simply piggyback on existing cables, but it can degrade through too much contact with water.

The Money

Most telecoms commentators agree that the £400 million initial investment from the government will be nowhere near enough for the scheme to reach its aims. It is thought that lots more private money (private investors will bring the current total up to £1bn) and tax money will have to be used to bring about the desired updating of the UK’s telecoms infrastructure.

Criticism

There have been many criticisms of the government’s big plans for boosting broadband speeds with the widespread use of fibre-optic cables including:

  1. Even if you have a fibre-optic cable to your home / business premises, there will still be shared traffic points in the network which will slow down your broadband at certain times.
  2. The scheme will need a large number of construction workers. This could mean disruption, logistical challenges, and high costs.
  3. Full fibre-optic, ultra-fast broadband is not likely to be a reality in the UK anytime soon. At the current rate, BT Openreach has stated that only two million premises will have access to ‘full fibre’ by the end of 2020.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With so much of business (with customers, suppliers, and internal communications / collaboration) now conducted over the Internet, a fast connection is essential to help UK businesses to remain competitive. It is disappointing, therefore, that UK businesses don’t have, and look unlikely to have any time soon, access to kind of speeds that overseas companies (e.g. competitors) enjoy. While it is good that funding and momentum for the task of delivering faster (fibre or fibre/G.fast) broadband for UK businesses looks to be increasing, the UK has a long way to go. The reality is that we may only have 7% full fibre coverage by 2020.