Tag: Suica App

The ¥10 barrier-free train station tax fare increase

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%.

The Barrier-Free fee increase to JR East regular adult fare and commuter passes in the designated tax zone

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.

Suica App v5.2.1 coming this March will support Off-Peak and High School/Jr.High School student commute plans

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

How much does Suica Off-Peak Commuter Pass really save you?

Peak Time at JR Koenji station
JR East stations in the Off-Peak commute zone have posted station peak times and gate displays will also change during peak time
JR East Off-Peak Commuter Pass PR vid

With the new train schedule and barrier-free transit tariff going into effect on March 18, current Suica Commuter pass users like myself who use the JRE POINT Off-Peak Commuter Point Service that ends this month, face a dilemma: does the Off-Peak Commuter Pass offer the same level of JRE POINT reward savings? Let’s face it, in these inflationary and looming tax increase times, pinching every point to yen counts.

It comes down to 3 choices: (1) a more expensive regular commuter pass that is difficult to swallow without the off-peak transit point return, (2) a less expensive Suica Off-Peak commuter pass without off-peak transit points, (3) no commuter pass with repeat transit points.

As my work place pays commuting expenses based on regular non-commuter pass transit fare, going with the less expensive off-peak commuter pass lets me pocket the difference. So my choice basically comes down to off-peak commuter pass or no commuter pass with repeat transit points, depending on which one gives better JRE POINT returns, better purchase price savings, or both.

Here is a comparison of the price increases for my 6 month commuter pass between JR East Asagaya and Tokyu Ikegami. The route is Chuo-Yamanote-transfer at Gotanda-Ikegami. The JR East portion covers 11 stations and 15 kilometers of track. Tokyu covers 12 stations and 11 kilometers of track.

Right away we can see that the JR East fare increase basically adds the barrier-free tariff, a 1.4% increase. The Tokyu fare increase is more than just the tariff, a lot more at 13.8%, likely including electricity price increases, salary increases, and what not. Tokyu also does not offer an off-peak option.

Now that we have the new commuter pass prices for both JR East and Tokyu, let’s run a simulation to find which configuration has the best JRE POINT returns. For the latter I used the very handy JRE POINT simulator, highly recommended for running reward point numbers. Remember, that off-peak and repeat points only apply to JR East fares.

As my work place covers the regular fare price, old and new regular fare difference is set at zero. Off-Peak points are calculated for 6 months based on 2022 returns. Repeat and recharge points are calculated on 20 round trips between Asagaya and Gotanda a month x 6 months for old and new fares. The return is the purchase difference plus JRE POINT with 1 point = 1 yen.

The simulation results are pretty much in line with my expectations. Suica Off-Peak commuter passes do give you the best value, by a little bit, especially when your company is reimbursing you at regular fare rates, which many companies seem to do. You also get the best value when your commute is exclusive to JR East lines as JR East has not raised fare increases, only adding the barrier-free tariff. The return drops when including connecting non-JR East lines but still give the best overall return. One thing is for certain: if you ride JR East lines regularly with Suica and are not registered with JRE POINT, you are throwing money away.

Gird yourself for the March 18 Suica Off-Peak launch because there will be a online crush of people like me, cancelling and refunding regular passes, and purchasing new off-peak passes. And don’t forget that date is also the launch of Mobile Suica passes for high school and junior high school students. Don’t be surprised if Suica App has a meltdown from the stampede. Good luck with simulations and finding the best way to save on transit costs.

Mobile Suica support has posted special help pages for refunding current regular passes for new off-peak passes and with renewing regular passes to include newly added stations (available from March 18).

Bad Suica App reviews, real or urban legend?

Suica App user reviews are relentlessly bad, rip after rip of ‘this software sucks’. Never a good thing to say. Here’s the thing however, when you dig into the reviews most of them have little to do Suica App. It’s also really weird that many reviewers/users seem to think they need Suica App for using Suica at the transit gate. They don’t.

Why are people even using Suica App anyway? You don’t need it to add Suica to iPhone, you don’t need it to recharge Suica. All these things can be done in Wallet app. And now that people are working remotely, there is much less demand for purchasing commuter passes, the biggest reason for using Suica App in the first place. But there is one good reason for using Suica App: setting up Auto-Charge. Set that and you’ll never have to use Suica App.

There’s an important difference to know about Auto-Charge vs. regular recharge in Suica app and Wallet app: auto-charge is locally processed via the transit gate Suica NFC reader. It’s instantaneous and doesn’t care about your iPhone network connection.

Wallet and Suica app recharge are processed via the iPhone (or Apple Watch) network connection. Apple Pay talks with iCloud and Mobile Suica, the transaction is processed online and relayed back to Apple Pay, the recharge amount is added to Suica card. Many network hoops.

There is a message the Mobile Suica twitter account puts out regularly: make sure your smartphone has a robust network connection and don’t use free WiFi when recharging Suica or using Suica App. A bad WiFi connection fools Suica App users into thinking their iPhone is connected to the internet when it is not. This is a particular problem with carrier Wi-Fi SIM auto-connect that bypasses a solid 4G/5G connection and automatically connects to an extremely unstable or overloaded carrier WiFi instead. WiFi on trains and in stations is never reliable and should be turned off when using recharging Suica in Wallet or using Suica App.

Which brings us to an interesting Suica App user review titled “It’s a real urban legend” which explains all the crap talk about Mobile Suica boils down to people trying to recharge at rush hour in transit gate areas with a crapped out carrier or free WiFi connection…the perfect Suica App killer situation. The reviewer recommends “recharge in a calm place at calm time,” to which I heartily agree. Or better yet, ditch network recharge altogether and use Suica NFC Auto-Charge. It will never fail you.

Suica App 3D Secure authorization for all non-Apple Pay in-app purchases

More fallout from the VISA JP Apple Pay agreement: JR East announced they will implement 3D Secure in iOS Suica App, requiring authorization for all non-Apple Pay in-app purchases.

Suica App is convenient because it works hand in glove with Apple Pay and app registered Japanese issue credit cards, giving users the widest possible card coverage. Since 2016, Suica App was the only work around solution for using VISA JP cards for Apple Pay Suica recharge.

With the VISA JP Apple Pay deal however, we are seeing a bunch of credit card backend changes, like merchant code changes that eliminate Suica recharge 3x travel points for Chase Sapphire Reserve VISA holders. JR East is changing how Suica App works, 3D Secure authorization for all non-Apple Pay in-app purchases is part of that. For users this means doing Suica recharge and commute plan renewal in Wallet instead of Suica App to avoid 3D Secure login hassles. Wallet is the hands down easiest way to recharge Suica and renew commute plans.

We’ll see a Suica App v3.0.4 update when 3D Secure is in place, likely after the new Eki-Net launches June 26. PASMO App already uses 3D Secure for registering cards but not for in-app purchases.

With direct Wallet addition of Suica cards starting with iOS 13 coupled with last year’s migration of Shinkansen eTicket functionality to Eki-Net, and the addition of VISA JP Apple Pay in-app support, Suica App is less essential than ever. The only reason for using it now is new commute plan purchases, Auto-Charge setup (which remains the 3D Secure free way to recharge) and receiving Suica Pocket recharge rewards.

There are some VISA JP cards that still don’t support Apple Pay in-app, MUFG holders still have to recharge the old Suica App way. Whatever the reason, the across the board change will be likely be very unpopular with iOS Suica App and Android Mobile Suica users.

UPDATE July 20, 2021
3D Secure is now required for registering credit cards in Suica App. So far there are no reports of 3D Secure confirmation required for Suica App in-app recharge or Green Car Seat upgrades. This matches my own limited testing. I’ll update this post if anything changes.

Any purchase in Suica App can be made with Apple Pay instead of the app registered card that bypasses 3D Secure, Suica App registered CC on the left, Apple Pay on the right

SmartGo Staple: smart Mobile Suica solution for COVID era business travel

As more companies transition work style away from daily commuting to a central office to telework with direct business trips from home, there is less need for commuter passes but that means more corporate virtual paperwork and paper trails for filing and processing transit expenses. How nice it would be if Mobile Suica had a plug-in for SF expense reporting. It does actually: SmartGo Staple a co-venture between JR East and NTT Communications.

The service is straightforward: for a ¥1,000 (w/VISA card option) or ¥600 (w/o) per Mobile ID monthly service fee, SmartGo Staple provides live Mobile Suica ID SF transaction data of registered accounts to corporate management and accounting, who then calculate and reimburse employee on the go, or teleworking at home for corporate related Mobile Suica use, reducing the paperwork at all levels. The flexibility of Mobile Suica and Suica App which discretely attaches a credit card to a Suica card, allows users to set up a Suica card just for corporate use with a corporate credit card attached.

This is the idea behind the SmartGo Staple prepaid VISA card option which management can ‘recharge’ remotely. SmartGo Staple a service for the COVID era but the interesting thing is that with more people doing without commuter passes, Apple Pay Suica and Mobile Suica easily covers nationwide transit and payment use. Commuter passes are the only reason for all those Japanese Transit IC cards. One Mobile Suica does it all. There are still weak spots, i.e. non SF Suica ID # attached services like smartEX and Shinkansen eTickets. Using a transit card ID number to attach separate services is flexible but involves the extra step of corralling the separate transaction histories into one expense report.

Young employees tell the department manager to get with the times

UPDATE 2021-09-22
Along the same lines a similar but important co-venture service was announced by JR East and SAP: Suica transaction record integration for SAP Concur Expense systems. The SAP promo video shows it in action. The matchup of SAP and Mobile Suica will make Suica the default transit tool for corporate Japan.