Big things sometimes come in small packages. JR East, JR Central, JR West issued a joint press statement on September 20 that starting in April 2021, Suica-Toica-ICOCA commuter pass regions will be enlarged into a continuous virtual commuter region for cross region commuting. This will cover regular rail lines and Shinkansen lines, and address current transit region ‘gotcha gaps’.
This has big implications and fits with the scenario outlined for what I call ‘Suica 2.0’. The press release does not mention Mobile Suica, and only shows current style IC transit cards, but it’s important to remember that Super Suica is a next generation transit card architecture with a next generation FeliCa OS for both IC cards and mobile.
This press release only covered the JR Group side, some grey areas remain. Now that the JR Group have an agreement in place to integrate their trunk line commuter pass regions, I expect that we will hear something similar for PASMO and other private rail IC transit card commuter regions at a later date.
UPDATE: Cross Region Commuter Passes went into effect March 13, 2021
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