The Edinburgh Festival helped Lothian surpass 100,000 “taps” in one day via its capped contactless payment method “TapTapCap”.
The Edinburgh operator introduced the system in 2019 and saw a record last Friday (18 August) – 14 days after the start of the world’s largest performance arts festival.
Sarah Boyd, Managing Director, Lothian says: “I’m thrilled that our TapTapCap system has reached this incredible milestone of over 100 thousand taps in just one day. Our buses continue to be a popular method of public transport for residents and visitors to our city during the festival, and this achievement is testament to the amazing work of our people across the business during the extremely busy month of August.
“Our contactless payment system has been a real success story for Lothian since its introduction and we look forward to breaking even more records in the future.”
TapTapCap, which is provided by Flowbird, allows passengers to cap their payment at the cost of a discounted day ticket after their third tap of the day with the same bank card or mobile device. It broke through one million taps within a month of its launch and averages more than 80,000 uses per day.
David Thompson, Managing Director of Flowbird’s transport division in the UK, adds: “It’s amazing to see that so many people at this year’s festival are taking advantage of the convenience of open payments and the benefits of fare capping.
“Not only does it remove the need to understand fares and carry cash, visitors have the freedom to explore the city safe in the knowledge that the fare system flexes with them. This is ideal for encouraging Edinburgh’s international and domestic visitors to use the bus network.”
