Talk about back tracking. When Hiroshima Electric Railway Co.,Ltd. (Hiroden) announced in March 2022 that they were replacing the FeliCa based Hiroshima region proprietary PASPY transit card with QR Code ticketing starting in October 2024, there was a lot of online commotion. ‘FeliCa is dead’ media acolytes celebrated, sane writers scratched their heads and asked about wider area transit compatibility. Regular people who live and work in Hiroshima rolled their eyes and complained about having to juggle different transit ticketing systems, a QR Code app for riding former PASPY transit, ICOCA for everything else. Some of the PASPY group partners threw up their hands and decided to go all in with ICOCA instead of the new proprietary system.
It didn’t help that Hiroden has a bad habit of thinking out loud before making final decisions. Over time it became clear that Transit IC card support (Suica, PASMO, ICOCA, etc.) would continue in some form. There was little choice but support it as PASPY readers have supported Transit IC cards since 2017. They couldn’t simply pull the plug.
We got a little bit of clarity when Hiroden formally announced that ICOCA and Transit IC support would continue post-PASPY. But it was lacking in detail except for a picture of the ‘simplfied’ JR West ICOCA reader rolling out in ICOCA region rural bus operators. These simplified readers don’t support commuter passes or automatic fare calculation. They are slightly modified store readers that require the driver to manually input the fare amount for distance based fares. The basic operation is not that different from using cash for bus fare. The user takes a numbered ticket when getting on and pay according to fare zone distance when getting off.
This is very different from the Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate Card system where the user taps on and off and everything is automatic, from calculated fare payment, to transit point rewards. Commuter passes are supported and users can add money to their Transit IC card right on the bus. And users have the option of 2 commuter passes on one card, one for the independently operated bus line, one for JR East lines. It’s the whole enchilada, top to bottom.
Hiroden officially announced their new closed-loop ticketing system on March 15: Mobiry Days. ‘Preview’ service starts in July 2024 on select bus lines, full service across former PASPY lines (Hiroden and the other operators sticking with them) in September. The last day of PASPY and current Transit IC compatibility service ends March 29, 2025. New ICOCA ‘simplified’ (store) readers go online the next day, March 30.
From a system design standpoint, the total of what Mobiry Days will do and Suica 2.0 will do are not that different: Account Based Ticketing (ABT) that hosts a virtual card (the account) with an NFC interface, IC card and QR Code interface (app). The Mobiry app is where the user manages the account, recharge, commuter and day pass purchases, and of course earn and use points.
The difference is that Mobiry transit ‘card’ (aka account) lives in the Mobiry app with native QR support. The Mobiry plastic card is an option that likely comes out of a station ticket machine but we won’t get all the details until launch time. The plastic transit card dumps FeliCa for another proprietary card format, most likely MIFARE based (oh the irony of dumping Sony tech for Phillips tech), and appears to do everything in the cloud like a credit card. Except that it’s closed loop and doesn’t use EMV. And that makes it interesting because Hiroden very obviously does not want EMV card companies taking a cut of fare processing, they control it all, top to bottom.
You might think, why didn’t the Hiroden led PASPY group go with a Suica 2 in 1 approach? Even if ICOCA had a 2 in 1 region affiliate program like JR East, I doubt Hiroden would have chosen it because they want to control Mobiry Days accounts and the fare processing pipeline. A Suica 2 in 1 approach wouldn’t give them that because at the end of the day, it’s a Suica card and a Suica system controlled by JR East. The only sure thing is this: Mobiry Days is going to be a very interesting launch of a new transit business platform for Hiroshima.
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