As of May 2022, Express Mode can be used with 10 transit networks: Japan (Suica, PASMO and compatible transit nationwide), China (Beijing, Shanghai and China T-Union), Hong Kong (Octopus), United Kingdom (Open Loop only Transport for London and some bus lines), New York City (MTA OMNY), LA (TAP) Portland (HOP), Chicago (Ventra) San Fransisco (Clipper), Washington DC (SmarTrip). Here are some Express Mode card tips and other observations for Apple Pay Wallet users that I have learned from years of daily Express Transit Mode Suica use.
1) Face ID Express Transit use with face masks and tight pants
Face ID disables Express Mode after 5 face misreads. Face ID Express Mode users need to be aware of the 5 strikes rule.
The most important thing to remember is that Express Mode only works while Face ID/Touch ID is ‘On’, when Face ID/Touch ID is disabled Express Mode is ‘off’.
Express Mode doesn’t care if you are wearing a face mask. However it is easy to disable Face ID iPhone without realizing it, resulting in a rude passcode request at the transit gate. Face ID face mask users need to be extra careful as five misreads disable Face ID and Express Mode. The passcode is required to re-enable Express Transit.
Users can mitigate some of this by turning off Raise to Wake in option in Settings > Display & Brightness. If you still have problems the last resort is turning off Face ID for unlocking iPhone, be sure leave it on for Apple Pay.
All iPhone users, both Face ID and Touch ID, need to be aware when putting iPhone in tight pants pocket: pressure on the side buttons initiates shutdown/SOS mode which disables Face/Touch ID and Express Transit. This is worse with a case because iPhone in a case is thicker and tighter in pant pockets, with more pressure on the side buttons.
2) Apple Watch Express Transit works for 10 minutes off the wrist
Suica and Octopus on Apple Watch are the ‘killer’ watch app that quickly becomes second nature. Its nice in colder months because Apple Watch works at the gate under layers of clothes, it beats digging iPhone out of a pocket. The biggest complaint I hear is from left wrist Apple Watch users. Most transit gate readers are on the right side so the user has to reach over to the reader. This will be a bigger pain with new JR East transit gates that place a slated reader on the right side. Some commuters migrate Apple Watch to the right wrist to deal with it.
One interesting aspect of Apple Watch Express Mode is that it works for 10 minutes off the wrist. This is by design in case the transit card needs servicing by a station attendant. After 10 minutes, Express Mode turns off and requires the passcode to work again.
The addition of EMV Express Mode in iOS 12.3 introduced the concept of having multiple Express Mode cards, one payment credit/debit card for transit use and one native transit card for each transit network (Suica, Octopus, Beijing, Shanghai, HOP, etc). The fine print tells a different story: if you have a China mainland transit card set for Express Mode, all other NFC-A protocol cards (EMV, MIFARE) are turned off.
There’s more to the story not covered in the Apple support doc: China T-Union Express Mode cards are incompatible with all other Express Mode cards. A set of reader images shows the issue. Turning on Express Mode for China T-Union turns off all other cards, both native and EMV payment cards. China T-Union cards are a bit messy in that older card formats like Beijing City Union are migrating to the new spec that does not support plastic card loading for mobile. Shanghai remains with the old spec with plastic card transfer for now but will also likely migrate in the future.
Shenzhen cards are also migrating from the legacy FeliCa (blue and orange) cards to the new China T-Union (red and green) cards. This is probably one immediate reason behind the ‘one at a time’ Express Card issue that Apple will hopefully fix it in a future iOS version. It’s not a problem as most users only use one Express Transit card at a time and can turn them on and off as needed. It’s interesting to developers because it reveals some current architectural limits of iOS 13 Apple Pay.
Transit cards on mobile devices first appeared in 2006 with the launch of Mobile Suica, the world’s very first comprehensive transit card on mobile service. With the arrival of digital wallet platforms from Apple, Google and Samsung in 2015, mobile transit cards have gradually become widely available outside of Japan. The first mobile transit card on Apple Pay was Suica in 2016.
The chart below lists transit cards hosted on embedded secure element (eSE) mobile digital wallets by service launch year. Entries are limited to native transit cards defined as reloadable stored fare, locally processed ‘truth on the card’ virtual transit smartcards, not cloud processed QR or EMV transit fare solutions, listed by official service year (either a formal announcement by wallet platform vendors <Apple/Google/Samsung/etc.> and/or transit agencies). Open Loop service and open beta test launches are not listed. The chart is best viewed in landscape mode.
*China T-Union cards are too numerous to fully list
Mobile transit card protocol overview The current lineup of transit card payment mobile protocols are
FeliCa (Suica, PASMO, ICOCA)
MIFARE (HOP, SmarTrip, TAP, Clipper, Myki)
PBOC 2.0/3.0 (China T-Union)
Calypso (Smart Navigo)
As explained in detail below, FeliCa and Calypso are the fastest protocols, MIFARE is in the middle and PBOC 2.0, a Chinese variant of EMV with card architecture customization for stored fare, is the slowest of the protocols, as EMV was originally designed for leisurely supermarket POS checkout not rush hour transit gates. Transit has special needs for fast fare processing at the gate to keep people moving and operations safe. In theory all protocols can process transactions at more or less the same speed, but the reality of NFC+protocol OS integration+antenna and gate design is that there are big differences. The truth is in the tap. Here is a rundown of the technologies and real life tap times.
While transit gates and NFC processors are found worldwide, what makes the Japanese gates different from the rest of the world is they don’t use global standard ISO 14443 (never mind Type A which uses Miller bit coding, the least efficient bit coding method) protocol which is common in many transit and bank cards issued worldwide.
The tap time with ISO 14443 Type A (née Philips) and B (née Motorola) varies greatly: from 200 to 500 milliseconds (ms) with 200 ms only achievable with Type B/Calypso. But it never reaches the short as 100 ms which is only achieved with Felica developed by Sony, also designated NFC-F and NFC Tag Type 3 by the NFC Forum and compatible with ISO 18092 which is commonly found in smartphones and NFC wearables since 2013. In this video passengers maintain their walking pace but never overshoot and trigger a gate closure nor slow down not even a bit.
It may be a minor difference but due to the high volume of passengers per gate (comparison example of large crowds at gates in Malaysia and Japan) and to reduce gate maintenance requirements, taps times really matter. Companies such as JR East have specified tap time of 200 ms but Suica is actually faster and this allows real life speed tolerances: some passengers tap faster than others due to walking pace, the higher speed tolerances are only possible with the 100 ms tap time of FeliCa.
Open Loop NFC ticketing (in its current form, EMVCo Contactless specifications are adopted in contactless bank cards issued worldwide including China UnionPay QuickPass which is PBOC derived from the EMVCo Contactless spec and uses the ISO 14443 Type A at 106 kbps only for 500 ms tap time, which is adopted in cities worldwide such as London, New York, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro is never supposed but as seen here, transit cards in Japan such as Suica, PASMO and ICOCA are supported for ultra hight speed and precise account verification and fare processing. Transit cards use offline Stored Fare (SF) which includes the amount of funds stored in the card’s IC smart chip data storage, NOT backend on a server like a bank card, and stored commuter passes.
YouTube comment explaining the speed differences between NFC types (blocked outside of Canada), edited for clarity
Japan and China transit cards are de facto national standards. Japan has Suica, ICOCA, PASMO, etc., which share the same basic architecture that gradually evolved into the mutual compatible Transit IC interoperability standard in 2013. PBOC 2.0 China T-Union is a Chinese Ministry of Transport initiative for interoperable transit cards on plastic and mobile, managed by Beijing China Communications Gold Card Technology that started in 2015, cards are prepaid Union One issue. With the rollout, China T-Union replaced existing MIFARE and FeliCa based mainland China transit cards.
The interesting thing about the latter is that many Greater Bay Area transit cards were FeliCa based cards and users really noticed the difference when China weeded out and replace them with the slower PBOC 2.0 powered China T-Union cards:
Compared to other contactless smartcards in use, the data transmission of <PBOC 2.0 China T-Union> Yang Cheng Tong is criticized by commuters that it takes 1~2 seconds between the card and reader to complete the transaction, though the operator claims that the data communication only takes 0.5 seconds in its official site.
The slower China T-Union speed is one factor driving the popularity of QR codes for transit in China: there isn’t any speed difference between the two so most people choose AliPay and WeChat Pay for the convenience of reward points, campaigns and more services.
This Wikipedia chart needs to be updated but illustrates how many China T-Union cards there are
Mobile transit cards vs Open Loop Mobile FeliCa developed by Sony and NTT Docomo has been around the longest and works across multiple mobile hardware platforms from Symbian handsets, to Android, to iOS/watchOS and now Garmin Pay Suica. MIFARE has a shorter history on mobile. PBOC 2.0/3.0 is basically new. The key period is 2015~2016 which saw transit card debuts on Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Huawei Pay.
The biggest advantages of transit cards in digital wallets is the freedom of anywhere anytime recharge with credit/debit cards; transit users are no longer chained to station kiosks to recharge plastic smartcards with cash or renew a pass. The more payment options supported on the recharge backend, the more convenient the card is.
These are great customer features, so why is it taking so long to get transit cards on mobile in America and Europe when there are some 257 China T-Union transit card compatible transit authorities already on mobile? The answer: Open Loop.
Blame the slow mobile transit card rollout on open loop Many transit card fare systems outside of Asia are managed by Cubic Transportation Systems, including Oyster, Opal, Clipper, OMNY, Ventra and SmarTrip to name a few. Cubic and operators like Transport for London, Transport for NSW and New York MTA have focused primarily on Open Loop EMV card support as their mobile solution instead of hosting native virtual transit cards.
Publicly run transit system resources are limited so using bank cards for open loop transit is seen as a way to reduce costs for both fare collection and plastic card issue. The downside is that open loop support adds a layer of complexity and cost that stymies native digital transit card support. As with all transit agencies that are run by, or receive movement funds, resources are limited, choices have to be made as to which mobile transit solutions receive funding. The end result is that precious system development funds are spent on EMV open loop development with native transit card mobile support a secondary priority, if at all.
However open loop cannot cover all fare options as bank cards were not designed for transit. This is why Oyster, Opal and Ventra have had to keep good old stored value plastic MIFARE cards around for fares that don’t fit in the ‘one size fits all’ open loop box. To address this shortcoming Cubic has created a new mobile transit solution: closed loop EMV bank cards for digital wallets.
Cubic’s very first mobile transit card effort, the long delayed Apple Pay Ventra, is the world’s first EMV closed loop transit card. It’s basically a Mastercard debit card with an account candy wrapped as a Ventra digital card. This same configuration is being tested for digital Opal. As closed loop EMV transit cards are bank card account based schemes, they still come with all the EMV on transit shortcomings, bank managed accounts, slow transaction speed, poor user feedback at the transit gate, etc. Because of the EMV open loop/closed loop priority, native transit cards on mobile will continue to arrive in a slow trickle.
China T-Union: centralized straightjacket for mobile The large deployment of PBOC 2.0/3.0 China T-Union cards on mobile has been cited as proof that it’s ‘better’ at mobile than FeliCa and MIFARE, but the reality has nothing to do with protocols or smartphone hardware. It is all about the Ministry of Transport China T-Union card nationwide standard managed by a single entity: Beijing China Communications Gold Card Technology (BCCGCT) using prepaid Union One issue for plastic and digital issue:
All China T-Union cards have a single recharge backend provided by UnionPay via BCCGCT. It’s the reason why China T-Union only support UnionPay recharge and sport a similar logo with local transit agency branding. It’s all one package.
China T-Union digital cards on mobile have to be created on the device, plastic card transfers are not supported. Local transit agency transit card apps are intentionally crippled and do not support any NFC transfer features, Apple Support pages do not mention plastic card transfer.
Eliminating plastic card transfers reduces management overhead and the UnionPay recharge backend shared by all transit cards issued by the same company makes it simple as BCCGCT runs everything. The various local transit operators simply plug into it. They don’t have to host anything or build a cloud backend from scratch, and there’s nothing to negotiate because UnionPay runs the payment network. China T-Union illustrates the power a national transit card run by a single government run enterprise monopoly that’s a streamlined straitjacket.
Every country and region has their own priorities for local transit ticketing services, as it should be. My position is a simple one: one size does not and should not fit everyone, ticketing can also be payments platform. A transit payment platform business model can be adapted to local regions and business conditions for long term sustainable transit in the mobile payments age.
discover their iPhone X NFC is wonky on transit gates
discover their iPhone X Apple Care is expired
As much as my iPhone X Suica performance was a headache, my iPhone XS Suica performance is a joy. To be honest, I have not kept up with the iPhone X Suica NFC issue as most of the users who complained about having the problem have long since gotten Rev. B iPhone X replacements and moved on, or moved on to Pixel 3 JP FeliCa devices.
There are a few holdouts. Some report that iOS 12.4 has mostly eliminated transit gate errors for them, but that iPhone X NFC performance is still sluggish and wonky. Other holdouts report that iPhone X NFC is still a problem.
Most iPhone X NFC problem devices are sleeper cells, the user doesn’t live in a demanding enough NFC use environment to actively notice the issue. The iOS 13 release is due September 19, Apple Pay Octopus and Apple Pay Ventra should be online soon after, barely a month before iPhone X Apple Care dead hour.
Getting a replacement iPhone X for unacceptable NFC performance was never easy, but it’s about to become extremely difficult, if not impossible. Good luck to all iPhone X users out there, may the NFC be with you.
The temporary absence of EMV Express Transit in iOS 12.4 betas 1~3 has ended, the option has finally returned in iOS 12.4 public beta 4 (16G5046d). OMNY users in New York can use the beta for transit now, but since OMNY itself is one big beta system why bother with beta on beta? I think it’s better to wait for the official release. Portland HOP iPhone users need not bother as they can put real HOP card in Wallet. It’s way better than using a credit card, faster and cheaper too.
The Apple Card tag line says it all, “A new kind of credit card. Created by Apple, not a bank.” This is a bank card that’s not a bank card, except that it is a bank card with basic limitations that can never be changed: a bank card is postpay and this chains it to the creaky banking industry that everybody knows and loathes, with predatory fees, credit checks and service nonsense.
To overcome this limitation, and the slow uptake of EMV Apple Pay and Apple Cash, Apple is merging the postpay Apple Card and the prepaid Apple Cash, glued together with Apple Pay into one service. Two is better than one, right? This merge of postpay + prepaid is a long overdue development for the American market that builds on ideas and experience that Apple gained from Apple Pay Suica in Japan.
The credit card drag on Apple Pay adoption The slow uptake of Apple Pay and other digital wallets in the USA is pointed out from time to time. The eMarketer blog piece in May 2018 predicted stronger growth for In-App loyalty prepaid cards like Starbucks, over Apple Pay and Google Pay. The Starbucks card is like many prepaid loyalty cards that offer points and rewards along with apps that let users add the loyalty card and attach a credit card for easy In-App reloads. It’s an easy entry point for customers to enjoy the benefits of using prepaid cards and get the most out of their purchases.
There are other factors cited for slow Apple Pay adoption rates in America, but I think the basic reasons are simple. During my 4 month American stay in 2018, I was surprised how slow and uneven the Apple Pay experience was at checkout. Pulling out a plain old credit card was often the faster hassle free choice. Either way it’s the same credit card right? It’s marginally move convenient, but not a new service.
That is the problem. Apple Pay and digital wallets are new technology but bank cards carry the combined weight of a creaky, out of date banking industry. Banks operations are retro, analog businesses living in the digital age on borrowed time. Bank cards with all kinds of new technology attached to them are still the same stodgy card services from the same stodgy banks.
The real point of the eMarketer piece is that In-App prepaid cards with postpay credit cards attached on the backend, offer customers a convenient new merged service that is than far better than either by itself, with bank cards limited to a indirect backup role. The prepaid card is the main point of contact between the customer and merchant, not the bank card. And this makes all the difference because it’s where the innovation is.
Japan Transit IC eMoney Transactions for non-transit purchases topped 8 million a day in April 2019
Apple Pay Japan success built with prepaid Prepaid card use for transit and purchases in Japan dwarfs credit card use, especially with younger people. The major prepaid cards include WAON, nanaco, Rakuten Edy and Japan Transit IC cards (an interesting bit of history is that Suica and WAON were initially conceived to be a single card). Of these the Japan Transit IC card standard occupies a very special category, 255 transit companies form a common interoperability standard which includes Suica. There are more issued Transit IC cards than people in Japan, everybody has one.
Japan Transit IC Map, outside white area cards are due to join Super Suica in 2021
The core group of 9 major cards (Suica, PASMO, ICOCA, TOICA, Kitaka, manaca, SUGOCA, nimoca, HAYAKEN) also share a common prepaid purse: Transit IC eMoney. The national coverage and scale of the major cards transforms Transit IC eMoney into something special found nowhere else: a de facto national prepaid card standard.
The success of Apple Pay in Japan is very different from any other country: it was not accomplished with bank cards, it was accomplished with the Suica transit card with it’s common prepaid Transit IC eMoney purse. The success formula has 2 basic ingredients: de facto national prepaid purse for transit and purchases matched with Apple Pay postpaid bank cards for recharging Suica. Prepaid + Postpay as one service with bank cards limited to the backend for reloading.
The concept is just like In-App prepaid loyalty cards: a prepaid front end with a flexible open ended postpay backend. But this one is much more powerful because it can be used everywhere for transit and purchases. Putting the Suica prepaid card on Apple Pay and Google Pay with their infinitely flexible postpay backend for instant, anywhere, anytime recharge and reloads takes everything to a whole new level of convenience and use.
One of the failures of Apple Cash is that the current version is pigeonholed as a peer to peer service. How different Apple Cash would be if it was positioned like Suica. Apple Pay HOP users are just getting their first taste of new things now, as will Chicago Ventra users when Apple Pay Ventra launches later this year. Unfortunately eMoney is not part of the mix for HOP and Ventra, only transit, nor are they compatible with each other.
A first step towards virtual currency? I used Suica before Apple Pay arrived and have nearly 3 years of Apple Pay Suica use under my belt. The prepaid + postpay service model matched with transit + purchase eMoney is a combination that is almost impossible to describe to a person who has not lived with it. The daily experience is very different from using bank cards which feel like hard money wrapped in plastic. Hong Kong Octopus card users are probably the only ones who can relate to it, and then only Smart Octopus in Samsung Pay users.
Suica eMoney on digital wallets represents a small step towards virtual currency in a way that bank cards do not. QR Codes serve the same function for China, the first small step away from hard cash. Even though QR Codes payment systems are usually hard wired to bank accounts, they are not run by banks.
None of these schemes are real virtual currencies of course, but they are an important cushion for the mind. The daily use experience prepares people for a future where payments, and the whole infrastructure supporting them, will be completely different from what we have now. It changes old habits, and more importantly, old ways of thinking, just a little. Taking the next step from there is much easier.
The Apple Card rollout due this summer is a head scratcher. There are lots of things Apple Card can do in Wallet that other cards, as yet, cannot do. It feels too big and important for just a press release and a new web page. And yet, by itself, it’s too small for a full blown Apple event. I think the Apple Card rollout is going to be a very interesting release for all things Apple Pay.
The new Apple Card + Apple Cash will be the first major postpay + prepaid Apple Pay service for iPhone users in America. The experiment will be fascinating to watch, but Japan remains the world’s most exciting and heady payments market experiment there is.
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