Passengers on the city's 8,500 vehicles will be able to buy tickets by swiping a credit, debit or charge card by an NFC (near field communication) reader. Transport for London (TfL) said the capital was the first city in the UK to offer the facility,
It builds on TfL's Oyster smartcard scheme which uses a different technology - embedded RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips. The buses' Oyster card readers have been upgraded to be compatible with both types of technology,
Smartphones that can mimic contactless cards should also work with the equipment. However, users are being warned to be careful about swiping their wallet against readers if they own more than NFC-enabled card.
"If you present two cards together, the reader will normally reject them both," an email to Oyster card users said. "But there is a small possibility of payment being taken from a card which you did not intend to use."
TfL said it planned to introduce the technology to the London Underground Tube system at a later point.
Source: BBC News
