Contactless in Edinburgh

Yes on every bus and on the tram, no on the train. What changes between them is how many times you tap.

On the tram, twice. Tap your card or device on the reader on the platform before you board, and tap it again on a platform reader when you get off. Miss the second tap and the journey is billed as a single Airport Zone fare, £7.90, whatever short hop you actually made — and that charge counts towards no cap.

On a bus, once. Tap the reader as you board and that is the whole transaction; there is no tap-off on any bus here. On Lothian Buses' own city services the fare is flat, so you simply tap. On Lothian Country and East Coast Buses, tell the driver where you are going before you tap, because those fares are charged by zone. Do the same on the Airlink 100 airport bus, though its fare is not zonal at all: the Airlink single is one fixed price from end to end of the airport run. On McGill's Midland Bluebird and on Stagecoach East Scotland's Fife-to-Edinburgh express coaches the tap is a purchase rather than a journey: one tap buys a discrete single, return or all-day ticket. Stagecoach charges £30 if you cannot show a valid ticket when asked.

Taps on the Lothian brands and the tram feed TapTapCap, Transport for Edinburgh's automatic capping scheme — the city day tier stops at £5.70 for zones A and B, and among the same-day tiers the £14.00 NETWORK tier is the only one that takes in Airlink and the Airport Zone. TapTapCap also caps by the week, Monday to Sunday, and there the airport is treated the other way round: the £26.50 city week for zones A and B counts journeys to and from Edinburgh Airport, and so does the £38.50 week that spans every zone from A to H. McGill's and Stagecoach sit outside all of it, so what you spend with them never counts. Use one card or device for everything: a second card starts its own count.

On ScotRail there is no tapping at all, on ordinary services or on the combined airport tram-and-train ticket. Buy a train ticket the usual way.

The accepted list is Visa, Mastercard and Maestro, and Apple Pay or Google Pay on a phone or watch. American Express is refused at the tram readers, though the tram ticket machines take it, and a card issued outside the UK may pick up an overseas fee from your own bank.

Yes, on every bus brand here, and on all of them it is one tap and nothing else. Hold your card, phone or watch against the reader as you board. There is no tap-off on a bus in Edinburgh — that step belongs to the tram — so do not go looking for a reader when you get off.

What differs is what you do before the tap. On Lothian Buses' own city services, nothing: the fare is flat, so you just tap. On Lothian Country and East Coast Buses, state your destination to the driver first and then tap, because those fares are charged by the number of zones you cross. Say what you want on the Airlink 100 airport bus too, but not for that reason: the Airlink single is one fixed price for the airport journey, whatever part of it you ride. On McGill's Midland Bluebird and on Stagecoach East Scotland's Fife-to-Edinburgh express routes the tap works differently again: it buys you a discrete ticket outright — a single, a return or an all-day — rather than adding a journey to a running total.

That distinction decides whether the day caps. Taps on Lothian Buses, Lothian Country and East Coast Buses feed TapTapCap, Transport for Edinburgh's automatic capping scheme, and the zone A-and-B day tier stops charging at £5.70. Airlink is where that gets confusing: among the same-day tiers only the £14.00 NETWORK tier counts an Airlink journey, but the weekly caps, which run Monday to Sunday, count it as a matter of course — the £26.50 city week for zones A and B includes journeys to and from Edinburgh Airport, and so does the £38.50 week covering every zone from A to H. Nothing you spend on McGill's or Stagecoach counts towards any of it, and Stagecoach charges £30 if you cannot show a valid ticket when asked.

Visa, Mastercard and Maestro all work, as do Apple Pay and Google Pay. So pick one card or device on your first morning and tap that same one onto every bus you board — swapping between them splits the day in two and neither half reaches the cap.