This video explains the process of refunding a current valid Apple Pay Suica regular commute plan and purchasing the new off-peak commute plan available from today (2023-03-18) with Suica App v3.2.
Related posts also explain off-peak commute plans and barrier-free station tax train fare increases:
Apple Pay Suica • PASMO Commute Plan Guide
The ¥10 barrier-free train station tax fare increase
How much does Suica Off-Peak Commuter Pass really save you?
The railway station barrier-free fee system is “a Japanese railway fare system established with the aim of promoting barrier-free railway stations in urban areas” by leveraging a fee on urban railway users in Tokyo, Kansai and Fukuoka areas. It is a barrier-free train station tax if you will, added to regular adult fare and commuter passes but generally not child fares or school commuter passes. The barrier-free tax will cover station infrastructure costs for adding platform doors, elevators, etc., to the designated metropolitan area stations.
From 2023-03-18 most railway companies in the Tokyo area, both JR East and non-JR, raised transit fares to pay this barrier-free station tax. Here is the breakdown for the Greater Tokyo area focusing on JR East.
Suica
A ¥10 fare increase for paper tickets and regular Suica/Transit IC cards In the JR East designated barrier-free tax zone. Suica Commute Plan increases within the same tax zone are listed below. The overall average fare increase is 1.4%.
Non-JR East Tokyo area railway companies are raising regular fares by ¥10 but commuter passes are a different story.
While barrier-free stations are good thing and not a big tax to pay for all that new infrastructure, the timing could not be worse. Living costs are rising across the board, little increases add up, eating into salaries that are not rising much, if at all. Each transfer on a multiple transit line routes now has increased fare with each transit operator section. For example: my work commute uses JR East and Tokyu lines, the old fare was ¥419, new fare is ¥457.
To help ease the pain, JR East is offering Off-Peak Suica Commuter Passes (plastic)/Commute Plans (Mobile Suica), that offer a 10% discount with the following condition: Off-Peak passes are valid when used outside the designated peak time of the commute plan entry station. If you enter the start point station during peak time, your Suica Off-Peak commute pass is ignored and Suica balance is used to pay fare.
In real world use it simply means if you have an Suica Off-Peak Commuter Pass, don’t enter your start station during the station designed morning ‘Peak Time’ on work days. If you do the commuter pass doesn’t work. Any time outside of ‘Peak Time’ you are good to do. This is much better than the convoluted, often confusing Suica Off-Peak JRE POINT Campaign that ends March 31.
Apple Pay Suica users can purchase Off-Peak commute plans in an upcoming version of Suica App (v5.2.1), but you must purchase a new pass. Regular commute plans can only be renewed as regular commute plans, they cannot be migrated to off-peak plans. School commute plans and passes will not be charged the barrier-free tax which is good news. Another bonus: high school and jr. high school students can add and use Mobile Suica school commute plans staring March 18.
I migrated to an Off-Peak on March 18 and posted a video showing the cancellation~refund of a regular pass, and purchase of a new Off-Peak pass.
PASMO
The situation for PASMO private rail and other non-JR East rail operators is varied:
Keio and Keikyu are raising fares later this year in October.
Regular adult fares are up ¥10 in line with JR East, some have also raised child fares by ¥10. Commuter passes are generally being raised more, and there are no off-peak commuter passes. Kansai area transit operators are raising fares on April 1, Fukuoka on March 27. Be sure to check how the fare and commuter pass increases apply to your local commute situation.
I have update the Apple Pay Suica • PASMO Commute Plan Guide with Suica Off-Peak Commute Plan details.
Related: How much does Suica Off-Peak Commuter Pass really save you?
Published 2023-01-15, Updated 2023-03-24
This morning on the train the salaryman sitting next smelled like last nights sake bottle, 2 high school boys sitting across were admiring and fondling each others nice expensive haircuts, the construction workers were reading novels instead of smartphones…while everybody else slept, played smartphones games and so on…a regular morning commute.
One of the things I’ve always admired about Japanese culture is the respect of borders and private lives of other people. This is easy to see on my daily commute as people go about their business without paying attention to others. When a friend from America visited with her family in 2019, she remarked how quiet Japanese were on trains. Now I don’t mind people talking on trains, but the big loud voices of talking American that carries into the next car always amuses me.
The respect of borders also plays out in how people don’t take much interest in the quirky habits of others. If a married man likes to cosplay in a frilly school girls uniform and walk around Shinjuku, what’s the big deal? ‘It’s that person’s life, they have the right to live how they want.’ American love to say that too but I don’t see them putting into action. If they did we would’t see the endless so called “cultural wars”.
That’s the interesting thing. Japanese respect each others borders, but Americans who profess freedom violently violate other peoples borders, in the name of freedom. How borderless is that?
It’s time to take a look at Suica and Japanese mobile transit ticketing developments expected for 2023. The Suica transit platform and Transit IC partners will introduce some big and important new service in 2023 that will play out over the next few years. Some like Cloud Suica, were due years ago. Some, like Mobile ICOCA should have been done years ago. And some are a response to COVID which is the inflection point that has changed Japanese transit forever. There is no going back to the transit world that was 2019 due to, mostly imagined, fear. Once fear takes hold in society, it becomes a mindset and mindsets are very hard to change.
There is also the cashless factor. COVID kicked the Japanese cashless migration into high gear, but this smashing success hasn’t made life any easier in the checkout line, no thanks to QR Code payment apps like PayPay and dPoint, with people taking longer to pay than even before as they dig around for coupons and discounts codes in smartphone apps. These code payments apps also changed the consumer mindset: they don’t want plain old points, they want points that work like cash, everywhere and instantaneous, instead of being stuck in point ghettos like JRE POINT. This is exactly what the PayPay and Rakuten point economic zones deliver.
The biggest COVID business casualty has been transit, with profitable commuter passes taking the biggest hit as companies transitioned to working from home and Zoom conferences whenever possible. And while people are using transit more since mid 2022, it has not recovered enough to stabilize transit company bottom lines. It’s a tough environment with companies trying to entice people, especially workers, to ride again with transit point perks and off-peak commuter discounts.
Private (non-JR) transit companies in particular are looking to offer more flexible fare options beyond what transit IC card systems currently offer. This is created a huge opening for the SMBC group stera transit open loop system: an off the shelf package ticketing system that combines transit gate reader hardware and cloud system from QUADRAC hooked into the SMBC stera payment platform. The SMBC stera transit marketing team is hard selling flexible fares such as fare capping and open loop appeal for inbound tourism.
It’s clear that JR Group and Transit IC association partners have to innovate and change to reduce costs while keeping the great convenience and benefits of the Suica transit payment platform. However as Steve Jobs once said about focus, focus is about saying no. You can either focus on making one service work great on your platform or just okay when you’re spreading limited resources too thin on supporting too many services. Do Japanese transit companies want better Transit IC for everybody or mediocre ticketing potpourri as money and engineering resources are diverted to bolting on open loop for a limited user base?
2023 Outlook
That said the main arc of Suica and Transit IC for 2023 is expansion. Suica, ICOCA, TOICA are expanding station coverage but in different ways. JR West ICOCA will expand to cover all stations in 2023 with a mix of hardwired station gates, ICOCA equipped trains and region affiliate buses. And of course there is Mobile ICOCA launching this spring. JR Central has outlined a similar strategy for TOICA but no Mobile TOICA plans so far.
JR East had opted for hardwired stations using a mobile connected Cloud Suica system for lightweight fare processing. At the same time they are expanding Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate card reach with new cards and service extensions to existing cards. With all that in mind, let’s examine the month by month launch slate.
January
ID-PORT based Suica Smart Lock service launches in JRE B4T business hotel chain. ID-PORT is cloud super glue linking an ID with Suica for specific time-limited or region-limited based services. Think of it as a kind of virtual key that unlocks access to places and services: hotel checkin, room access, location or age linked transit services, discounts and so on.
While it’s good that Suica and Transit IC cards can offer features and services attached to the card number, the current reality is that each service comes with a separate app, separate registration process and ID/PW login. There isn’t a single sign-in service, a JR East version of Sign in with Apple ID, for easy service registration and linking. Smartphone users are already drowning in apps, I don’t see most people using the growing tangle of services unless there is an easy to use and secure single sign-in service and streamlined UI.
February
Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate MegoIC card launches for Konan Bus lines operating in the Aomori Hirosaki region expanding Tohoku Suica coverage, Iwate Green Pass also extended service to more bus lines. More on Suica 2 in 1 further on.
March
March and April are traditionally busy months with new schools, new jobs, buying new commuter passes that go with them, and launching new services:
1) Mobile ICOCA launches March 22. Mobile ICOCA will be hosted in similar fashion to Mobile PASMO which is based on Mobile Suica assets and cloud infrastructure. Osaifu Keitai will launch first followed by iPhone. This is a big development. JR West is building their ICOCA system expansion in a slightly different way than Cloud Suica by using separate ICOCA tap in/out readers on local trains and stripped down, simple ICOCA (no commuter pass support) for connecting transit affiliates. One interesting trend is the decline of PiTaPa card users since Kansai area private rail companies started offering ICOCA commuter passes (see the chart at the bottom of the post).
2) Off Peak Suica Commuter Pass
COVID has made it clear that the old style ‘station to station’ commuter pass is outdated and its fare model needs to be modernized to bring business users back. All transit companies have to come up with new flexible commute plans that work for different work commute styles.
After dicking around with the confusing and convoluted off peak transit JRE POINT service campaign for 2 years amid a COVID induced commuter pass crisis, JR East is trying again: the confusing ‘Off Peak Commutes Pass’. Available for Suica cards and Mobile Suica, these new passes offer a 10% discount over regular commuter passes that are rising 1.4% with the condition: they must be used outside of the designated start station peak rush time. If you enter the transit gate during the peak rush time, bam, your Suica transit is charged the standard fare. No commute plan for you.
While this is a welcome development it doesn’t far enough. Flexible fare distance capped commute plans that are not tied to specific stations would be a much better deal for occasional business users. For example it would be great for sales people if there were commute plans that combined a selection of fixed distance zones (10 km, 20 km, 50 km, etc) with a selection of fixed trips (10, 20, 30 trips, etc.).
This isn’t a technology or system problem, it’s a business model mind-set problem. JR East has the Suica system in place to take mobile ticketing to the next level. It’s time that the JR Group lead the way for all transit companies to cooperate for a seamless national mobile transit solution.
3) Disability fare Suica/PASMO service starts in the following regions:
The challenge of disability fare Suica/PASMO/Transit IC is that while the card is issued by the transit operator, the disability Suica card has to be certified using the resident city issued disability ID. This authorization is why disability Suica/PASMO is limited to plastic cards for the time being, at least until Digital My Number Card is launched on Android and iPhone. Why is disability fare Suica important? Up until now Suica has been a ‘stored Fare is stored fare’ one size fits all card. Suica has to evolve to include different fare types and services to survive as a viable transit payment platform.
4) Mobile Suica and Mobile PASMO Commute Plans for High/Jr. High School Students
Another big push away from plastic to mobile with a streamlined app process for student commuter pass certification via updated Suica and PASMO apps. Hopefully a more streamlined mobile app certification process for student passes paves the way forward for disability fare issue Mobile Suica/PASMO as well. Local governments need to help make this happen.
April
ICOCA extensions close the Transit IC gap between Honshu and Kyushu for thru transit via Shinkansen and plastic ICOCA/Sugoca commuter passes starting April 1. This is similar to the Suica-TOICA-ICOCA Atami and Maibara station extensions that launched in March 2021. The final piece of the JR puzzle is integrating their systems for thru local fare transit with regular plastic and mobile cards. It’s long overdue that they eliminate this last nonsensical nuance.
May
1) Cloud Suica extensions. A big one, a new Suica fare system that powers the Tohoku region Suica extensions for Aomoi (10 stations), Morioka (18 stations), Akita (17 stations) launches May 27. As outlined the separate posts, Cloud Suica is best thought of as Suica 2.0. The card is the same but the reader side and processing system is completely new. Ideally Suica 2.0 offers the best matchup of local stored fare with internet cloud based transaction processing instead of expensive dedicated pipes to the data processing center.
Lower system costs is one objective but not the only important one. The Suica 2.0 fare processing system will also power the new QR Eki-Net Ticket service that launches in the very same Tohoku Suica region in late FY 2024 (October 2024~March 2025). We’ll found out how flexible Suica 2.0 is if JR East starts offering much more fare innovation.
It’s important to reexamine the role of Suica 2 in 1 here. We have two new Suica developments that converge in the Tohoku region: we have the Suica 2 in 1 card itself, new updated FeliCa card and OS with new Suica architecture, and we have the cloud based Suica 2.0 fare system. In other words we have a Suica 2.0 card coupled with the Suica 2.0 processing system.
July
1) Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate odeca card joins the system, the first established transit card updating to the 2 in 1 format. All 2 in 1 cards to date have been new cards. The next established non-Suica compatible transit card transitioning to Suica 2 in 1 is Nagano City Kururu card in 2025.
2) Open loop stera transit comes to Tokyo in a big way as Tokyu Railway starts tests. If it’s anything like the gradual Nankai open loop tests, a few important stations will have a few gates retrofitted with open look EMV contactless and closed loop QR Code readers. They will also surely offer a smartphone app for QR ticket purchase and display. One interesting aspect of the Tokyu Railway effort is that Tokyu were responsible for pushing, and paying for, Mobile PASMO. It would not have happened otherwise.
August
Utsunomiya Light Rail due to start service using Totra 2 in 1 Suica.
The rest of 2023
There will certainly be more services announcements and launches in the 2nd half of the year such as Apple Pay ICOCA and more open loop test installations.
Coming in 2024
We have Suica linked financial services coming with JRE BANK (rebranded Rakuten Bank cloud infrastructure), Yamagata region Suica extensions (21 stations) and unspecified Sendai Suica region extensions that will pretty much complete the installation of Suica on the entire JR East rail network. And of course QR Eki-Net Tickets which build on all the Cloud Suica infrastructure rolling out this year.
As always I will update this overview post as new services are announced with links to individual posts and updated guides.
Way back when Tim Cook first unveiled Apple Pay, the main sales point was the convenience of doing away with messy wallets. My mom’s wallet for example was always stuffed full of credit cards, point cards and the latest store discount coupons clipped out of newspapers and flyers. The promise of Apple Pay was, “look ma, no more messy wallet.” Except it didn’t work out that way.
The rise of code payment point economic zone like PayPay, dPoint and Rakuten Point has resulted in mobile payments that take longer than mom’s messy wallet ever did. I was reminded of this recently getting lunch at Doutor Coffee. A youngish woman paying in front of me wasn’t really paying. With smartphone flat on the counter, lavishly nailed fingers leisurely tapped away for 5 full minutes as she completely ignored the cashier waiting to read the QR code, everybody else waiting in line be damned. Instead of getting read to pay she was signing up for some pissy small payment app discount coupon. And when that was done she finally paid with a QR code for a cup of hot cocoa, face full of discontent. Or maybe that was her normal character.
You see that kind of checkout line behavior everywhere in Japan these days: half losing oneself digging around in an app to find a coupon or campaign special, half ‘screw you’ that often skirts on taking pleasure from somebody else’s pain. People literally loose themselves in the moment.
Who’s to blame for this state of affairs? QR Code payment apps that offer all kinds of coupons certainly deserve some of the blame, along with crappy in-store wifi, or lack thereof. Apple Pay deserves some blame too. Let’s face it, Apple Value Added Service (VAS) NFC protocol has been abysmal failure in the Japan market despite dPOINT and PONTA support. And who’s the biggest culprit of all? All of us of course…all of us who actually believed that technology could fix human behavior. In short this issue isn’t going to be fixed. All we can do is remember to chill, pay attention to our surroundings and be polite in the checkout line.
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