Following the migration to cashless buses, Transport for London are seriously considering plans to make all London Taxi drivers accept credit or debit transactions as payment for fares. The report, according to Mayor Watch, says that all taxi cab drivers in London could potentially be required to accept debit and credit cards by 2016. Whilst some drivers already accept card payments many elect not to because they to incur the cost of both installation and the running costs for card terminals.

By introducing the facility across all cabs, realistically this would have benefits for both passengers and drivers – including reducing the risk of drivers being robbed and ending the need for passengers to stop off at ATM’S during their journey, say TfL. TfL would scrap the surcharge currently levied when paying by card as part of their proposals and include the average cost of a card transaction in the standard fare, meaning passengers would pay the same amount regardless of their payment method.

According to the report recent TfL polling suggested almost 90% of users would back the move for mandatory card acceptance. which is quite compelling.
TfL’s Managing Director of Surface Transport, Leon Daniels said: “We are always keen to utilise technology to improve the experience of our passengers. Currently around half of the 23,000 taxis in the capital can already accept card payments. We are exploring a proposal to make this a mandatory requirement across the entire taxi fleet from 2016. The proposal would also see card transaction fees considered when we calculate overall taxis fares – meaning that passengers would pay the same fare irrespective of how they chose to pay. This is not necessarily true to obtain the cheapest minicab insurance however as brokers often have to pass on the charges imposed by the card issuers. To get cheap taxi insurance, it is always best to pay in full by debit card as monthly direct debit facilities, including those which are financed, often carry surcharges.