Beware investing in wrong technology when pursuing benefits of London-style ticketing, new report warns

Bern, 23 September 2026 – Transport policymakers across Europe seeking to emulate London’s public transport ticketing success should prioritise Mobile Pay-As-You-Go rather than investing in outdated Contactless technology, according to a new report from public transport expert Thomas Ableman.

While “London-style ticketing” has become an industry shorthand for simple and seamless multimodal travel, Ableman, who was formerly Director of Strategy and Innovation at Transport for London, highlights a key distinction between the customer proposition and the media used to deliver it. As public transport authorities across Europe invest to modernise their ticketing, the report warns that replicating London’s Contactless payment system would be an expensive and time-consuming missed opportunity.

Based on analysis of European best practice including countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, Stop Talking about London-Style argues that Mobile PAYG is instead more flexible, quicker to install, and considerably more cost-effective. One estimate shows Mobile PAYG schemes would cost less than 5% of the costs of an equivalent Contactless ticketing scheme.

Drawing on interviews with public transport ticketing experts from across Europe, the report concludes that most of the properties that make Contactless ticketing popular with the public apply to Mobile PAYG as well. What’s more, the need to use a token that people will always have with them is now best delivered through smartphones because in many countries such as the UK smartphones are carried by more people than contactless bank cards.

Thomas Ableman said: “London’s Contactless system was a wonder of the world when it was launched; deservedly one of the greatest global transport innovations of the 21st century. But things have changed since 2012. It’s now possible for customers to use a device they already carry; making it easier for them and saving multiples of millions of pounds in platform validators and ticket machines. Policymakers need to give customers current technology, not one from the previous cycle.

Transport authorities are custodians of public money and must not waste it by investing seven figure sums digging trenches and installing wiring when a better solution for their users is available.”

Paula Ruoff, Core Markets Lead for FAIRTIQ, the Swiss ticketing technology company that commissioned the independently written report, said: “Our Mobile Pay-As-You-Go technology has supported approaching 450m multi-modal journeys across Europe, and we are active in twelve countries including national ticketing systems in Denmark, Austria and Switzerland. We have partnered with more than 100 transport authorities and operators, and we’re ready to help more transport authorities deliver the simple and seamless multi-modal ticketing schemes their passengers deserve.”

To help implement modern ticketing, the report sets out more than a dozen deliverable recommendations for national and regional governments, national railway operators, other transport operators, and regional transport authorities. Together these would give passengers a better service at lower cost to the transport sector and state, without need for legislation or significant national investment programmes.

The full report, Stop Talking about London-Style: Why Digital PAYG is now the Future of Ticketing, can be downloaded here.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Stop Talking About London-Style was commissioned by FAIRTIQ but written under Thomas Ableman’s full editorial control and represents his arguments and judgements alone.

Report recommendations:

Irrespective of technology used, all modern ticketing schemes across Europe should:

• Simplify fares first, to remove overlapping fares and products.
• Establish pricing cap governance, such as pricing levels and how they relate to season tickets, to create a pricing promise which customers can trust.
• Sequence savings correctly, and only look to realise efficiency savings from existing ticketing channels after new digital channels have won customer trust, and not before.
• Protect small-operator cashflow when designing the settlement process, to ensure they aren’t priced out of modern ticketing.
• Accelerate settlement for all operators towards daily settlement, to ensure operators are not waiting to receive the money they are owed.

To enable mobile-first ticketing, the report makes a series of recommendations for government and the transport sector in the UK and across Europe:

• For national transport ministries: Do not designate a specific media as the preferred option, but instead define the minimum customer proposition that technology needs to meet; Certify technology solutions against this proposition rather than specifying technology; and establish multimodal trials at small scale now.
• For national railways: Publish a national, multi-modal mobile ticketing strategy anchored in Mobile PAYG which supports regional schemes and allows for interoperability between national rail retail and regional caps; and include Mobile PAYG capability in their national ticketing app.
• For transport operators: Participate in multi-modal schemes when they happen because these schemes make it easier for customers to access public transport. This means publishing fares data via an open national fares registry and accepting visual validation of Mobile PAYG as a minimum.
• For regional transport authorities: Specify outcomes required from ticketing strategies and procurement exercise, never the media. And becoming the first UK region to build an exemplar will set a benchmark that every other region, including London, will visit.
  

About Thomas Ableman

Thomas is the founder of Freewheeling, where he supports the leadership teams of Combined Authorities and transport operators with integrated transport and organisational strategy. He was previously Director of Strategy & Innovation at Transport for London, the world’s largest integrated transport authority. At Chiltern Railways, he led the creation of the UK’s first barcode ticketing app, and led the nationwide rollout of barcode ticketing at the UK’s Rail Delivery Group.

About FAIRTIQ

With over 400 million journeys, FAIRTIQ has established itself as the global leader and pioneer in postpaid ticketing and Mobile Pay-As-You-Go (MPAYG) solutions. The platform serves more than one million active monthly users and is currently available in twelve countries: Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. Across 27 regions, the app enhances accessibility and ease-of-use for public transport on a regional level, while providing nationwide coverage in three countries. Leading transport operators and authorities rely on FAIRTIQ’s solutions as the company continues its rapid international growth and global user expansion.

In the UK, FAIRTIQ is one of the official technology providers for the Department for Transport’s Digital PAYG rail ticketing trial, partnering with Northern Trains to offer the technology on the Sheffield-Rotherham-Doncaster line. A video showing how the technology works in the UK rail market is available here.