Suica, Toica, ICOCA integrating commuter pass regions staring in March 2021

Apple, Apple Pay Suica, Apple Pay Transit, Cool Japan, Mobile and Contactless Payments, NFC-Felica, Suica, Suica App, Transit
  • Commuter Passes on Regular Train Lines
  • Commuter Passes on Shinkansen and Regular Lines

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’. The press release comes almost exactly one year after the JR East, Sony, JREM ‘Super Suica’ next generation transit card announcement, the start date coincides with the new transit card rollout.

This has big implications and fits with the scenario outlined in the Super Suica piece. 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.

For Apple Pay Suica users this means that starting in 2021 all commuter passes for those IC card regions can likely be covered by one ‘Super Suica’, however details are few at this point. I hope to post an analysis of these developments soon. There is a lot to look forward to as Japanese transit companies prepare for the big, long term migration to the next generation transit card architecture.

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. At first glance it does not appear to be a ‘Super Suica’ FeliCa Standard SD2 card, however older passes cannot be renewed or updated for cross region. The cards have to be re-issued on new plastic. For that reason alone I suspect the cards use the new FeliCa Standard SD2 format.

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