A new era of travel has begun across the Merseyrail network with the expansion of Tap and Go to include contactless bank cards, smartphones and smartwatches. The initiative, backed by a £10m investment from Steve Rotheram and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, aims to modernise the region’s transport system and improve passenger convenience.

Travellers can now tap in at the start of their journey and tap out at their destination using the same device or card at rail gates or platform validators.

The system is designed to reduce queues, particularly during peak hours, while ensuring passengers are automatically charged the lowest available fare.

In further support for residents, fares will remain frozen in line with national policy until March 2027. Existing MetroCard users can continue to use their cards as normal, with ticket offices remaining open for paper ticket purchases.

“This is a long overdue step forward in bringing our transport network up to the standard people rightly expect in 2026. Contactless payments are the norm in other major cities like London or Paris, so it’s only right that people in the Liverpool City Region have a system that’s simpler, more flexible and better suited to modern life.

“With contactless payments, we’re making it easier than ever for people to move around our region, without worrying about rush-hour queues or calculating the best possible fare. Crucially, this is about giving people a choice: our ticket offices will remain open for the many passengers who rely on them every day.

“However, today marks the start of a new era for public transport in the Liverpool City Region – but it’s not the end of the journey. As we take greater public control of our transport network will be able to deliver a single unified, seamless ticketing system across our trains, buses and ferries that makes travelling by public transport as fast, easy, cheap and convenient as possible.”

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region.