Irish bus operator, Burkesbus, has rolled out contactless EMV payments across its fleet. Passengers travelling with Burkesbus in Galway and Mayo can now pay for bus fares using a Visa or Mastercard contactless card or a digital wallet. 

Burkesbus worked with transit payments infrastructure provider Littlepay, ticketing technology specialist Transmach and acquiring provider Elavon to deliver contactless EMV payments across its network. 

When boarding a bus, riders have to simply ask the driver for their preferred ticket type and pay for it using the contactless ticketing machine available on the vehicle, eliminating the need to buy paper tickets before boarding. 

The solution was launched in response to a growing demand for contactless ticketing in the country. According to a study done by BOI Payment Acceptance (BOIPA) in 2022, 63 per cent of Irish consumers prefer using cashless payment methods when making in-store purchases. This figure is above the average (54 per cent) recorded by other countries in the study.