Contactless ‘Pay As You Go’ rollout for multiple Kent train stations including Sevenoaks shelved

Contactless travel
-Credit: (Image: Philip Toscano/PA Wire)


Contactless travel will now no longer be launching at six Kent train stations later this month, National Rail has confirmed. A total of 47 train stations across the south east were due to receive ‘Pay as you Go’ systems on Sunday, September 22 to help improve journeys and ease of travel for passengers.

However, National Rail has today (September 12) announced that this will no longer be going ahead due to an ‘ongoing cyber security incident’ involving Transport for London (TfL). The government body confirmed that on Sunday, September 1, ‘suspicious activity’ was identified, triggering a security response to limit access, though some data was breached.

Shashi Verma, TfL's Chief Technology Officer, said: “'Although there has been very little impact on our customer so far, the situation continues to evolve and our investigations have identified that certain customer data has been accessed. This includes some customer names and contact details (including email addresses and home addresses where provided).

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“Some Oyster card refund data may also have been accessed. This could include bank account numbers and sort codes for a limited number of customers. As a precautionary measure, we will be contacting these customers directly as soon as possible to advise them of the support we can provide and the steps they can take.

“We have notified the Information Commissioner's Office and are working at pace with our partners to progress the investigation. We will provide further updates as soon as possible.”

As further part of the response, TfL has stated that it has put in place new security measures, including an all-staff IT identity check. With investigations into the incident continuing, the contactless rollout has been temporarily shelved, with plans to reschedule the launch at a later date.

Here in Kent, the following six stations were due to receive the upgrade: Bat and Ball, Dunton Green, Eynsford, Otford, Sevenoaks and Shoreham. Once live, passengers would have the option to tap in and out of stations where contactless pay as you go is in operation.

A new date for the launch has yet to be confirmed, though TfL has said it will provide an update ‘as soon as we can’. Shashi went on to say: “We do not expect any significant impact to customer journeys as we carry out this process.

“However, temporary and limited disruption is possible to some services so, as ever, please check before you travel [...] We will continue to keep our customers and our staff updated. I would like to apologise for the inconvenience this incident may cause customers and I thank everyone for their patience as we respond to this incident.”

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