Fully baked totra cake

Mobile and Contactless Payments

The Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate card program started in March 2021 with the kickoff launch of totra, but the transit card is only reaching it’s completed vision this month with the August 26 service launch of the long delayed Utsunomiya City LRT.

As outlined at totra launch time, the Suica 2 in 1 card uses the next generation FeliCa SD2 chip and FeliCa OS to combine Suica functions with region tailored transit service extras in one card. All of the Suica 2 in 1 cards offer the basic minimum of bus commuter passes and automatic transit points, these multiple region transit specific points automatically earned and used for discount fares. Suica 2 in 1 were the first Suica cards with disability fares, some Suica 2 in 1 region cards also offer senior fare cards.

Utsunomiya City has gradually added totra region extras that show what Suica 2 in 1 can do:

  • Transfer fare discounts: discounts for bus~LRT transfers that cap wider region to city center transit fare at ¥500
  • Fare capping: fares capped at ¥400 for city area transit
  • Transit points: automatic transit points earned and used when riding region transit (bus and LRT).
  • Senior transit subsidy: annual ¥10,000 senior (70+) fare subsidy awarded as ‘Welfare Transit Points’.

The last one is an interesting one and illustrates the differently tailored region services, AKICA for example offers senior fare cards while Utsunomiya pays an annual senior transit subsidy. There are a few nice surprises on the LRT FAQ page such as paying group fare with a single Transit IC card and more totra extras such as day passes are in the works. As totra is also a Suica card it comes with all the JR East benefits as well: JRE POINT, Eki-Net Shinkansen eTickets, Suica Day Passes, etc.

There will be a lot more new Suica services coming as Suica 2.0 is rolled out in addition to My Number card region linked services. New developments leveraging individually tailored transit and region based services will be coming over the next 4 years. This kind of highly customized closed loop account based ticketing is extremely difficult to achieve with open loop.

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