Now that we have Mobile Suica, Mobile PASMO and Mobile ICOCA that represent over 90% of Transit IC group card marketshare, most people assume that’s the end of the mobile story because the other cards are too small to roll out their own mobile service. Or are they?
On the surface it might look like manaca might be a likely candidate but JR Central TOICA has the best chance of adding Mobile TOICA. You think I’m joking right? Judging from the small issue base numbers and the utter lack of marketing love TOICA gets from JR Central, it does indeed look like a joke. A careful read of recent TOICA related announcements tells a different story however.
2022-10-31: JR Central announces TOICA is coming to all JR Central stations.
2023-12-21: TOICA gets its first ever PR event with the JR Central CEO announcing the first TOICA extensions. 29 stations will be joining the system in 2025: 1) Tokaido Line (Arano, Mino-Akasaka), 2) Iida line (Mikawa-Ichinomiya to Hon-Nagashino), 3) Minobu Line: (Koku to Kajikazawaguchi).
The TOICA extension that’s actually Suica
So what’s behind JR Central sudden passion for TOCIA? The Chuo Shinkansen that is due to start operation after 2027. The route has stations in these new TOICA extension areas. JR Central needs easy local access to the new Shinkansen stations coming in those areas. The most interesting aspect is the Minobu line gap. Why isn’t the whole line joining the system?
The answer is that Koku is already wired…for Suica. JR Central will wire the stations in the greater Koku region, but these will actually be Suica region because both JR East and JR Central want users to have a seamless transit experience going from local lines to the Chuo Shinkansen. Mobile TOICA and EX QR will play a big part in that.
EX/Tokai Station Point and Eki-Net/EX interoperability
There’s another recent big change that shows where JR Central to go: EX Point and Tokai Station Point. Just like JRE POINT and Wester, JR Central woke up and smelled the coffee that they need a point system to drive loyalty use. Mobile TOICA needs to be there to accomplish that. There is also the mobile Shinkansen and regular express train eTicketing aspect. We will have 2 separate online ticketing services in the Chuo Shinkansen route area, JR Central EX and JR East Eki-Net. I suspect those systems will start working together similar to how JR West Odekake-net currently integrates with JR Central EX. Users sign-up and use the ticketing service with the credit card that gives them the best point returns. To really drive ticket sales however, all JR Group members need to take their point systems out of the respective silos and offer 1 to 1 point exchanges.
Closing the last gap
The final question is when does the Minobu gap disappear. JR East announced that internal Suica regions will disappear in 2026. Expect the Suica~TOICA region barrier to disappear after that. At that point transit across Suica and TOICA regions becomes seamless, eliminating bottlenecks at Atami, Kozu, etc.. It would be great if that happens with the Chuo Shinkansen service launch sometime after 2027, but like all things, it comes down to how serious JR Central and JR East are about building easy transit on-ramps to Chuo Shinkansen stations.
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