If you are familiar with the Japan Transit IC card system that started with Suica and grew from there, you might know the other major cards like JR West ICOCA and JR Central Toica. What about the JR Shikoku card? There isn’t one.
The problem dates back to the many bad decisions made by the Nakasone Government when they privatized JNR by breaking off small weak areas like Hokkaido and Shikoku as independent JR companies. It would have been much better if they had used the NTT privatization model of just two companies, East and West, which balance out weak areas with metropolitan hubs.
JR West ICOCA covers a small part of the JR Shikoku rail network already, today they announced an extension covering 7 more stations in March 2020. Even with this extension which is compatible with Apple Pay Suica, Transit IC coverage in Shikoku remains a real headache, one that is hopefully and finally solved by Super Suica in 2021.
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