You Can Now Tap In With Your Samsung

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 81 months ago
You Can Now Tap In With Your Samsung
We're not 100% this phone's a Samsung, but anyway. Photo: Dave Kirwin

Samsung Pay is now in action for pay as you go users across London's transport network.

Anyone with a Galaxy S8/S8+, S7/S7 edge, or S6/S6 edge* can tap in/out on bus, tube, tram, DLR, London Overground, TfL Rail, River Bus and most National Rail services in London. Oh, and the Emirates Air Line, should the mood take you.

What's the benefit? Aside from stringent security measures (including fingerprint and iris reading technology), Samsung Pay sounds like it's easier to use than Apple Pay. Whereas with the latter, you need to faff about with screens/buttons before getting to the ticket gate/reader — all you need to do with Samsung Pay is touch the middle of your phone on the reader. No need to press anything or have the screen on. In theory, this could lessen the ticket bunch-up you sometimes get at rush hour, thanks to unprepared iPhone users.

Says Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer at TfL, "It's great to see another mobile ticketing option introduced into the market... Samsung Pay will significantly benefit customers using this simple and secure mobile payment solution."

Over 900 million TfL journeys have been made using contactless technology, since it was launched on London buses in 2012 and tube and rail services in 2014.

*Subject to a software update.

Last Updated 01 June 2017