Tag: QR Contactless

The PASPY thing

HIroden, NEC and LECIP team up for the new system announcement that replaces IC smartcard PASPY in 2024 (Hiroshima Home TV)

PASPY announced today that PASPY transit IC card service ends March 2025. The official replacement has been announced, billed as the “the fist Account Based Ticketing system in Japan” (yeah right) and launches October 2024. Main PASPY operator Hiroshima Electric Railway Co.,Ltd. (Hiroden) has been thinking out loud since last May that they planned to go all in with a QR Code smartphone app. Twitter users complain, a lot, that QR will be an inconvenient pain in the butt over what they have now.

Here’s the thing, most people assume that killing PASPY card means Hiroden and Hiroshima region PASPY transit partners will rip out all the FeliCa readers and replace them with optical code readers. I don’t think so. FeliCa PASPY cards will disappear but not the transit IC readers. If you listen carefully to Hiroden’s bitching and moaning about having to shoulder PASPY system costs from the PASPY/FeliCa fare processing server side (that the PASPY partners don’t help us enough with…boo-hoo-hoo). Dump that and get out of the plastic card issue business, leave ICOCA / Transit IC readers where they are and let them handle their own fare processing, retrofit a QR scanner or install Denso Wave QR+NFC readers, toss out a QR PASPY app and the PASPY associates can call it a day.

PASPY had all the limitations of region transit cards: no e-money functions for store purchases to juice the recharge business side, slowly declining ridership, and the card could not be used on JR West ICOCA and larger Transit IC network…limitations that the Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate program resolves. Too bad JR West doesn’t have a similar program for the ICOCA region but it says something about JR West and local government relations that Hiroshima City and prefecture officials have kept quiet.

Nevertheless, there are way too many ICOCA and Mobile Suica users out there and Mobile ICOCA goes live 12 months from now. PASPY partners will want to keep those users riding no matter what Hiroden ends up doing. And local government transit subsidies will help keep the Transit IC readers in place. The whole point of transit is encouraging people to use it…right? And if it all works out, for QR based PASPY MaaS with Transit IC support, all the better.

Hiroden lines

The contactless payment ramen shop connection

Have you ever noticed that ramen shops in Japan kinda stick together? If there is one, there is another one close by, maybe two or three. And not just ramen shops, it can be Japanese sweets, eateries, anything. This might seem strange at first but there is a well known traditional Japanese business sense behind it. Two is better than one because more choices drives more foot traffic and interest. ‘Hey lets go to the local ramen shop district and get something to eat.’ The common interest is why store rivals tolerate each other because the increased customer interest and traffic drives business for everybody. All boats rise together.

I was reminded of this when a Japanese friend scolded me for constantly putting down code payments like PayPay when the speed and ease of Suica is so superior. “Why is it westerners always see things as black and white? Lots of choices drives interest right?” He was right of course. Coming from a western mindset it’s too easy to fall into the same old double standard of saying more choice is better on one hand, while on the other insisting that we should only use one thing. The old one size fits all, my choices are the best for everyone.

I also think there’s another, much larger and unacknowledged cultural difference regarding the concept of service: the Japanese mind tends to think of good service as being offered many options, while the western mind tends to think of good service as fulfilling one’s personal needs and wants of the moment. It may seem like a small difference but it’s a completely different way of seeing things. It’s also a good reminder that what’s convenient to our person is not necessarily convenient to other people.

One size doesn’t fit all. What’s the point of having all that different hardware when everybody’s forced to use the same software? Lots of choices for lots of people works better in the end…it drives interest in mobile payments when there are still a lot of people in Japan who have yes to use anything but plastic or cash. Variety invites and lifts all boats.

Pick one

QR Code user survey slight of hand

A recent customer sentiment survey regarding QR Code use and security from Ivanti is a classic case of marketing manipulation in action. Same survey, different titles:

The English title:
QRurb Your Enthusiasm 2021: Why the QR code remains a top security threat and what you can do about it

The Japanese title:
Is Japan a 3rd world country when it comes to QR Code use? Compared to 80~90% usage rates in China and the West, Japan remains stuck at 60%

The English survey summary highlights basic security problems to sell security software:

  • 47% or respondents claimed to know that a QR code can open a URL.
  • However, only 37% were aware that a QR code can download an application and only 22% were aware that a QR code can give away physical location.
  • Two thirds of respondents felt confident that they could identify a malicious URL, but only 39% stated they could identify a malicious QR code.
  • 49% stated they either do not have or don’t know if they have security installed on their mobile device.

The Japanese version highlights low Japanese QR Code payment use, and security software use compared with China to sell security software. It also heavily implies that Japan is behind China because of this.

Don’t know about you, but this kind of night and day spin is one reason I have stopped believing most market surveys. They are just too loaded. Give credit where it’s due: the Japanese Ivanti marketing department is certainly clever in spicing up a dull story. It’s their job. Download the English PDF and see for yourself.

JR East eliminating 70% of ticket offices by 2025 in ticketless push

In the run-up to the June 27 Eki-Net reboot next month JR East released a nice looking PR release with the first 2 pages promoting a ticketless future. On page 3 they dropped a bomb: JR EAST will eliminate ‘up to’ 70% of their ticket offices by 2025, just 140 stations or so on the entire JR East rail network will have the honor of having a ticket office manned by real people:

JR East has been planning this for years and report that in 2019 only 30% of JR East ticketing was purchased at a JR East Ticket Window (Midori-guchi). In 2020 that number declined to 20%. Could it be people were so tired of waiting in long slow ticket office lines they bought tickets elsewhere? Let’s be real though, the COVID pandemic has hit transit so hard all expenses that can be cut will be cut. You will going ticketless whether you like it or not.

So yes, we have Mobile Suica and Eki-Net Ticketless for regular express trains, Touch and Go Shinkansen, Mobile Suica and Shinkansen eTickets. By 2025 I suspect QR tickets will have replaced mag strip tickets. The Cloud Suica system coming in 2023 is said to power QR ticketing as well. All is good, I guess. Except for when you need help at the transit gate for some weird ticket problem, a smartphone that died before you got to the last station because you were too wrapped up playing games on it. What do you do? Press a button for an online station agent:

JR East says real station agents will be available to offer real assistance for disabled customers and such. We shall see. If JRE wants people to use Suica as much as possible they need to get Suica disability discount fares in order and working on mobile. Right now they are only working in the 2 in 1 totra Suica region. They need to work everywhere.

Real life code payments

Doutor Coffee Shops added code payment options recently. The sticker next to the reader says all that you need to know: please have your payment app ready before paying. The downfall of code payments is always the network connection. Maybe network connection is weak, or tapped out, or whatever. Last week I was grocery shopping at a basement store location and noticed customers running from checkout to the bottom of the stairs, tapping their smartphone, then running back to the checkout. Bad network area.

This is all too common and a real pain now that every store chain and their dog has a rewards app. Most checkout goes like this: the customer pulls up the store app for discounts and reward points, then pulls up PayPay, dBarai, Line or any other popular code payment, and if the network gods are benevolent, finally pays. NFC was supposed to save us from slow plastic cards and paper coupon checkout, but in the digital wallet age we’re slow if not slower because the store location is in a crappy network area, inside a building with thick earthquake proofed concrete walls. Welcome to code payments in the real world 101.