Apple Pay dropped in the U.K. this week, and iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users can employ the touchless payment method to travel on a variety of public transports, including subway, London Overground, busses, and trams. But public agency Transport for London has issued an advisory to those who wish to pay for their commute with the power of living in the future:
Make sure your devices have enough juice to get you where you’re going, or it’ll cost you.
The politely worded warning is available on TfL’s website, and it has two reasons you’ll want to avoid a dead phone or Apple Watch on your trip, both of them embarrassing and more expensive than just paying in cash like a caveman.
“[If the device you paid with ] runs out of battery in the middle of a rail journey, you will not be able to touch out at the end and could be charged a maximum fare,” the advisory says.
“Touching out” refers to holding your iPhone 6 or Apple Watch up to an Apple Pay reader at your destination so that the system can figure your total and proper fare. Not doing that would be similar to losing your ticket to a parking garage. Even if you know the attendant, and waved to them when you went in, and you remembered their birthday, they will still charge you like you parked all day because you have no documentation proving how long you were in the garage.
So thanks a lot, Betty.
Maximum fare in this case could be as much as £8.80 (about $14 U.S., or twice as much as Betty made me pay that one time). Things get really expensive if a plain-clothes officer asks to see your ticket, but you can’t do that because your ticket is on your iPhone and your iPhone is dead. In that case, you could face penalty fares of up to £80 (125 American dollars), but you can cut that in half if you pay it right away.
London Transport customers should make sure that they check their levels before they leave home, however, because grabbing some juice from one of those “Cleaners Only” outlets on the London Overground can either get you into trouble or destroy your phone.
Update 4:25 p.m.: The original post erroneously referred to “London Transit” and not “London Transport.”
Evan Killham is a freelance writer who lives in Nebraska and isn’t interested in football, so he has plenty of time to play and think about video games. He has written for Bitmob and GamesBeat and sometimes, he even goes outside. But not too often because he’s heard there are bees out there. Occasionally, companies send free units for review. Evan subscribes to Cult of Mac’s Reviews Policy and also does not keep the items he receives for possible coverage.
9 responses to “London Transport to Apple Pay users: Charge or be charged”
London Transit is London Ontario. TfL is London Uk
Fixed — thanks!
:)
But you still refer to London Transport. Transport for London is the correct company name. London Transport is a now disused company name referring to TfL’s predecessors.
Its not neccessarily as dramatic, what apple pay does is that it literally duplicates your contactless debit card onto your phone, it works on london transport the same way as the original contactless debit card meaning even if your phone is dead you can touch out using the card itself rather than the phone. There is pobably few caveats around that like you need to have the card with you and it needs to be that type (debit, contactless etc..)
What i think is that apple pay will most likely be a pain to use on the underground mainly due to lack of cellular signal meaning it wont be able to contact the mothership for authorisation!
This is pretty much nonsense.
If you touch in with your iPhone and touch out with the debit card you think has been “literally” duplicated onto your device, you’re paying with a different card to the one you touched in with and will be charged the full rate as described above.
Also: Apple Pay doesn’t require a connection to the network for ‘authorisation’.
Do you have *any* idea what you’re talking about? No.
Thanks for your comment Owen, some of the aggressive comments you threw in to back up your case were unnecessary though. I guess you thought it makes your points stronger and compensates for lack of facts.
You see the difference is that what I said is a fact I checked through my own experience not something I think tfl would “surely” clarify. It’s like the logic of: “it aint true because it wasn’t on the news!” good luck with that.
if you go to a shop and pay with apple pay, ask for receipt – next to payment method you will see the details of your card that is linked to your apple pay – it won’t say paid by apple pay it will say Visa or whatever card you have linked = the system sees you paying with apple pay as your debit card not anything else you might imagine it would be, therefore the above argument is incorrect and misleading – you should check your facts first.
Go on the tube, check and then come back and apologise for guessing incorrectly.
The comment I added about internet connection was my presumption as I mentioned – I didn’t say it’s a fact. I don’t know if it is.
Excellent post.
This surely begs the question why anyone would pull out their phone in the first place, at risk of dropping it, and go through the rigmarole of fingerprints, checking for signal etc when you could just touch your little plastic card.
No fuss. No battery or signal anxiety. Quicker. No risk of a broken phone.
Oh no, hang on, I guess I could spend£350 on an Apple watch and at least avoid the risk of broken phone part.
Technology solving a problem that doesn’t exist? You bet ‘ya.
You don’t need signal for Wallet to work?