UPDATE 4-20: JR East announced a Suica Station Ticket Rebate Campaign: 140 JRE POINT reward with ¥1,000 station mall shopping. The campaign runs until May 31 but JR East should really make this standard.
JR East Suica station admission service starts March 13. JR East stations will accept Suica and Transit IC cards, Apple Pay Suica•PASMO included, for 2 hour non-transit station admission.
The 2 hour station ticket costs ¥140 (Kanto district in-station malls)~¥150 (everywhere else) and covers all Suica gated stations (flap gate stations). Non-JR East stations, JR East stations off the Suica grid and Shinkansen gated areas inside JR East stations are not supported.
Suica station tickets are the transit IC equivalent of paper platform tickets. The origin was for tearful platform farewells seen in old classic movies, but the Suica version is more about enticing people to shop and use station malls. Ticketless is nice but I wish JR East had also figured out a way to waive the fee with Suica purchases over a certain amount, like free parking vouchers. That would be the ultimate station mall shopping motivation. (The update at the top of the post covers just this)
Suica has been around since 2001, what took JR East so long to do ticketless station admission? The background details are interesting. Paper station platform tickets are completely separate from regular tickets and clearly marked, but there is no way for the entry transit gate point to determine the difference between using Suica for transit or just stopping at the station. This can be a problem when there is a major stoppage due to weather, earthquake, etc. and station staff have to deal with large numbers of people stuck in the station or forced to use another line. Fortunately this doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’a a problem.
You must be logged in to post a comment.