First West Yorkshire has recorded over 80,000 contactless transactions since its launch over one month ago, with over 4,250 customers switching to contactless every week.
Martin Hirst, Commercial Director of First West Yorkshire, says: “We’re pleased to see customers making the switch to contactless and the feedback has been hugely positive.”
“Alongside contactless, we also offer customers the choice to purchase tickets in advance of boarding, via our mTickets app. Use of mTickets continues to exceed our expectations and has seen a 100 per cent year-on-year growth. We’d also urge more customers to switch to pre-paid tickets, as these are often more cost effective than buying tickets directly from the driver.
“If more customers converted to using mTickets, contactless or the MCard, then this would have a huge impact on boarding times and would help us in the battle to speed up the bus. We’ve recently made service changes to help improve the punctuality of our bus services across West Yorkshire and this, coupled with asking customers to put weekly tickets into the ticket sleeve, instead of drivers, and the launch of contactless, means that we’re speeding up boarding times and making journeys even quicker.”
The success of contactless follows a significant investment in nearly 900 new ticket machines.
