TfL licenses contactless ticketing tech for £15m

Cubic Transportation Systems will be able to use tech in other transit systems worldwide

Transport for London (TfL) has signed a deal worth £15m to allow technology firm Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) to sell the Oyster contactless payment technology to other cities around the world.

London mayor Sadiq Khan explained that the deal will allow him to stick to his promise of a price freeze on fares by generating revenue in other ways.

"I made a firm commitment to sell TfL's expertise around the globe. We will use the income from those deals for further investment in new infrastructure and to freeze TfL fares," he said.

CTS already provides ticketing technology in cities such as Sydney, Chicago and Brisbane, but the use of contactless payments makes TfL something of a leader in this market.

The ability to incorporate the technology will allow CTS to bring it to other cities at a much faster pace.

Shashi Verma, chief technology officer at TfL, explained that the deal underlines TfL's success with contactless payments.

"Contactless payments have completely transformed the way people pay for travel in London, and this deal will allow other world cities to benefit from the hard work we put into making the system work for our customers," he said.

TfL started using contactless payments on buses in 2012 and expanded the system to Tube and rail services in September 2014.

Since then, over 500 million journeys have been made by more than 12 million unique credit and debit cards from 90 countries.

One in 10 of all contactless transactions in the UK are made on TfL's network, making it one of the largest contactless merchants worldwide.