HAMPSHIRE buses are to benefit from a multi-million pound investment to speed up journey times.

Contactless payment is now available on hundreds of First buses across Eastleigh and Fareham.

This is the last stage of Hampshire County Council’s £1.6 million initiative to make bus travel easier and quicker.

The new facility aims to allow passengers pay for tickets with their cards, Apple Pay and Android pay without worrying about having the right change.

Cllr Rob Humby, Hampshire County Council’s executive member for environment and transport, said: “Travelling by bus should be as quick and convenient as possible, and installing contactless payment places Hampshire at the forefront of this customer-friendly technology which increases passenger choice, makes travel simpler and improves congestion and air quality, by reducing delays while passengers look for change.”

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, the first buses ready for contactless took to the road at the beginning of June with more than 500 buses in Winchester equipped during the summer.

Now the county council has revealed that more than a quarter of a million passenger journeys in Hampshire have already been made using contactless – accounting for up to 20 per cent of journeys, with take up growing week-on-week.

“This latest move puts Hampshire as the only shire county in the UK to offer this modern payment method, which is in addition to cash, mobile tickets and Smartcards, and aims to encourage even more people to get out of their cars on to a more sustainable mode of public transport,” Cllr Humby said.

The initiative is a joint partnership between the county council and local bus operators First, which includes Eclipse and Star services; Go South Coast, which operates locally as Bluestar, More, Unilink and Salisbury Reds and Stagecoach, which includes the Gold and Kings City services.