Even better, London doesn’t need NFC smartphones: if you have a chip bank card with a chip for tap payments, just tap that. For those of us with smart watches,

Even better, London doesn’t need NFC smartphones: if you have a chip bank card with a chip for tap payments, just tap that. For those of us with smart watches, they do the metro fast pay thing as well, so I literally just tap my watch without having to press anything or get anything out of my pocket. If my watch battery is dead, I can just a bank card. The only advantage to having Oyster is if you’re travelling enough to justify a monthly pass (daily and weekly caps are respected on bank card taps), or longer. I travel a lot across North America and EMEA, always glad to get home and deal with London’s transport network: it’s the only one that is really designed around, built for and feels invested in the passenger experience.