JR East finally made a long anticipated announcement: the end of local transit mag-strip paper tickets. The PR release tucks the transition to paper QR tickets info at the very end, an almost ‘oh by the way’ last minute bit tossed into a PR grab bag. But the PR media briefing had the JR East CEO making the transition announcement with big mock up tickets for the media. Every JP news outlet and transit blogger posted the event and did what all IT media does: fail to provide important context. So people naturally get confused and say things like, ‘my phone doesn’t have NCF so I could use Suica QR,’ what?
Let’s cover some important basics.
- Suica and PASMO are used for over 90% of local fare transit in the Suica/PASMO region, local transit paper ticket use is less than 10% at this point.
- QR local fare tickets remain paper only. No mobile, if you want mobile use Suica. This is the correct operational choice. The only change is the user taps the QR reader instead of inserting a ticket.
- The transition to QR means the paper local fare ticket sizes increase to the ‘large standard’ used for long distance blue tickets but with the local fare orange color.
- QR ticket gates don’t automatically take the ticket at exit, users are responsible for keeping or tossing them. Good luck with that, I predict JR East will do nothing ‘to reduce costs’.
It is the end of the mag-strip paper ticket era with all the wonderfully intricate ticket gate mechanisms joining the ranks of obsolete technology. There are armies of technicians who keep them is good working order, I hope they have other jobs taking care of other intricate machines. I’ve been living in Japan since 1984 and consider myself lucky to have experienced several ticketing migrations, paper punch to paper mag-strip, mag-strip Orange debit card, plastic Suica, Apple Pay Suica NFC…and looking forward to Apple Pay Suica UWB walk-through in 2027.
The spring 2027 launch date is important and not the only launch date. This is when Suica 2.0 (central server ticket processing) goes JR East systemwide. Currently, QR readers in Tokyo region JR East stations only work for Eki-Net Q long distance mobile tickets, and only inside the 23 ward area. In JR East Kichijoji station for example, QR readers are still covered. At the latest, all QR readers on the JR East system should be uncovered by launch date. At the same time, current Suica region barriers should disappear as Suica 2.0 rolls out. Joban Line users can finally travel with Suica as the Tokyo / Sendai regions disappear. It will be an interesting change for local and long distance travel.
You must be logged in to post a comment.