Train passengers travelling to Stansted airport will finally be able to use contactless payments on some Greater Anglia routes.
Greater Anglia has announced that contactless tickets will be in operation from Sunday, 8 March. The station at Stansted was scheduled to introduce the service on 14 December, but the project was delayed by nearly three months.
Passengers are able to pass through the ticket barriers at Liverpool Street and Tottenham Hale stations in London and board a train to the airport by tapping their contactless cards, but once they reach Stansted, they are prohibited from tapping out.
This has resulted in fines being handed out to tens of thousands of passengers who have used their contactless or Oyster cards.
Now, some 20 stations across the Greater Anglia network will have working contactless barriers, similar to those seen across the London Underground.
The extension of contactless ticketing will also cover key commuter routes, including to Southend Victoria, Witham, Southend airport, Chelmsford, Harlow Town and Bishop’s Stortford. The recently opened Beaulieu Park station, in Essex, is also included.
Stansted and Southend airports will not, however, will still not accept Oyster cards.
However, not all of the stations on the Greater Anglia network will have contactless or Oyster payments rolled out, including Colchester, Newport and Southminster.
Contactless ticketing allows passengers to pay for individual journeys, combining peak and off-peak fares, which are automatically calculated based on where and when they travel.
Daily and weekly caps will also apply on journeys into and within London.
Greater Anglia’s managing director, Martin Beable, said: “We are pleased to be able to confirm that pay-as-you-go contactless ticketing will be introduced at a further 20 stations from 8 March, making travel across our network simpler and more flexible for customers.
“This extension is another important step in modernising ticketing on the railway, allowing passengers to tap in and out and pay for the journeys they make, while improving the overall experience for those travelling into and out of London.”
Pay-as-you-go contactless will be an option at the following 20 Greater Anglia stations:
- Billericay
- Beaulieu Park
- Bishop’s Stortford
- Chelmsford
- Harlow Mill
- Harlow Town
- Hatfield Peverel
- Hockley
- Ingatestone
- Prittlewell
- Rayleigh
- Rochford
- Roydon
- Sawbridgeworth
- Stansted Airport
- Southend Victoria
- Stansted Mountfitchet
- Wickford
- Witham
- Southend Airport
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