Irish buses to accept contactless payments as part of new trial

21st century, is that you?

The inability to pay onto a bus via contactless has long been a source of annoyance for commuters all over Ireland. There’s only so much faffing around with the Leap Card top up app or fumbling around for change a person can do.

Luckily, our fumbling days could be over – at least temporarily – as we should be able to pay for bus fare with contactless methods as part of a new trial next year.

According to the Independent, a pilot plan by the National Transport Authority will see contactless payment service on some public bus services in the second quarter of 2023. Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has also said that a full contactless system across all bus services is a “first priority”.

As it stands, bus users must pay fares either via their Leap Card or with coins, as buses don’t accept card payments or notes.

Mr Ryan also addressed the issues affecting the NTA’s Real Time Information service in recent months, saying that a “variety of reasons” were affecting the information shared:

There has been a real issue around the IT systems in our bus network. Everyone knows about it, the difficulty in terms of getting accuracy on the real time information system and on keeping the schedule and that’s caused by a variety of reasons

One being a shortage of drivers, difficult getting drivers … but secondly that the IT system, it’s creaking. It’s an older system, and it needs to be replaced and modernised.

They put a lot of patches in, that means that is back now to much higher accuracy now, the problems of two or three months ago are diminished but we do need a much wider entire IT system.

And I don’t have the exact date in terms of when that full contactless system will be in place, but it is a first priority.

Header image via Shutterstock 

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