Leicester Buses Tap On Tap Off Multi-Operator Contactless Capping Update – 1 Year Later

Multi-operator Tap on Tap off contactless price capping was launched in March 2022 by the Leicester Buses Partnership.  It was the first multi-operator capping scheme to launch in the UK, covering over 99% of passenger journeys.

Leicester Buses is pleased to report that over the past 12 months, bus users in Leicester have made combined savings of £131,000 thanks to the launch of multi-operator Tap on Tap off price capping in the City, with 183,000 passenger journeys being made.

Multi-operator Tap on Tap off contactless capping is available on First Bus, Arriva and Centrebus services in the City, allowing passengers to pay with their contactless card or phone and simply “tap on” when they board the bus and “tap off” when they alight.  Whatever journey the passenger makes, the system will always calculate the best value fare for their journey (s)

The main benefits of Tap on Tap off for customers are:

• Quicker boarding – no need to buy a ticket from the driver
• Easy to use – no worrying about which ticket you need to buy
• Flexible – you only pay for the journeys you make, even when your travel plans change
• Universal – the price cap works no matter which bus companies you travel with
• Best value – always get the best price on day and weekly travel

The partnership is also delighted to have won the Transport Ticketing Global Award for Best Smart Ticketing Programme 2023 (<200k daily journeys) last month.  The award recognised the complexities of the having three separate companies involved in rolling out the multi-operator contactless scheme, as well as recognising the expansion of the Flexi multi-operator scheme as a whole.  Project Coral and our partners at Ticketer and Littlepay played an important role in helping us to deliver the multi-operator contactless scheme.

The roll-out of multi-operator Tap on Tap off price capping was one of the first projects to be delivered by the Leicester Buses Partnership, as part of their ‘Big Bus Plan’ which aims to bring about a transformative change in bus travel, that’s electric, frequent, reliable, easy and great value. 

Together the Partnership, which includes Leicester City Council and bus operators, hope to continue working with the industry wide Project Coral to continue developing the scheme by introducing further multi-operator price caps to make Tap on Tap off the payment method of choice and make bus travel even more attractive.

More information about Tap on Tap off and the wider projects under the Leicester Buses Partnership can be found on www.leicesterbuses.co.uk.