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Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

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Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#171

Post by arjie »

ericmay wrote: post #169
arjie wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also happens with Clipper Card in the Bay Area. Happened to me a couple of weeks ago on BART. I wonder if all transit cards need to be loaded with money when used on iPhone. I remember having a Clipper Card with autoload and that would work just fine without balance.

You might be right. I like how NYC is set up with just tap to pay with your wallet app without needing to unlock or anything.

Yeah, I particularly like London’s implementation (I moved away just short of a decade ago - might have changed since) where if you just use the same card you don’t need a pass because there are daily/weekly/monthly maximums and you travel for free afterwards. Very good system. But it is slower that Suica/Pasmo.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#172

Post by ryan_lane »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #28
sowbug wrote: post #13

When you pay with Suica, the merchant pays a transaction fee of between 2 to 3.2%, similar to a credit card. That's surprising. IC cards are so universally and cheerfully accepted that I assumed they had no per-transaction costs. Compare the US, where merchants can be surly about card payments.

There's a mindset difference. People are more willing to pay to reduce inconvenience for customers there, whereas here the inconvenience to the merchant sometimes matters more.

This simply isn't true, or you'd see these places accept credit cards.

The most prevalent mom & pop approach is either cash only or it's cash and PayPay. You may also see cash, PayPay and IC. PayPay, at first, had extremely low fees and an army of sales people that targeted mom & pops, pushing the low fees. They've since then increased fees as their saturation has increased, and now you'll see shops adding things like setapay or hachipay (which are annoyingly ku specific payment methods that are very low fee).

Larger businesses are owned by massive conglomerates, or are housed in shopping complexes owned by massive conglomerates that require them to accept more payment methods.

Like all businesses, they aim to reduce their costs and increase their margins. They aren't adding payment methods to reduce your inconvenience, unless they think doing so will increase their volume enough to offset the fees.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#173

Post by moorow »

aldonius wrote: post #156
left-struck wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that is amazing about Sydney’s system though is that as a visitor to Sydney you can likely use the train system without needing an app or any sign up. Just use your credit or debit card via nfc on your phone (or the physical one) I was honestly so impressed by that, you mean I can just tap on? Don’t need to stand here outside the gates for 10 minutes entering my info into a frustrating app? Don’t need to bu…

Yep, and it's increasingly common around the world. In Australia, it's also fully rolled out in Brisbane and I believe it's just about finished being rolled out in Melbourne too.

It's now rolled out in Perth too, I think.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#174

Post by kalleboo »

jen20 wrote: post #146
numpad0 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JRE required Suica to be instantly accessible so there's a setting in Apple Wallet to set a card to a default quick transit use card(forgot the exact name). If configured as such, just poking the gate antenna with earpiece end of an iPhone instantly completes the transaction just as fast as a real card does. (yes, the antenna is in the top FaceID/Dynamic Island area, Osaifu Keitai spec requires a □つ icon wherever ant…

Is this different to Express Mode, which has been a thing for years for all kinds of cards (including car keys)?

Express Mode originally launched as Express Transit with only support for Suica, Beijing and Shanghai cards. It was then renamed to Express Mode when support for the other modes was added.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#175

Post by LPisGood »

cptcobalt wrote: post #20

If you haven’t experienced suica, it’s like magically fast. Faster than NFC, faster than Apple Pay, faster than tap to pay, faster than Disney magic bands, faster than your work badge. It absolutely floored me every time I used it in Japan and it’s a full payment transaction.

It has really surprised me a few times.

It reminds me of that oft touted experiment where a light lit up within some number of milliseconds of a person hitting a button, and people perceive it as happening before they hit the button.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#176

Post by klausa »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #167
klausa wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you’re left handed, or wear your watch on your right hand for whatever reason. Or you have a contortionist spirit in you, whatever works :)

I'm right handed and wear my watch on my left wrist, never had an issue.

I've tried it once and found it very inconvenient, compared to pulling out my phone out of my pocket, but glad to hear it works for you!

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#177

Post by left-struck »

moorow wrote: post #173
aldonius wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and it's increasingly common around the world. In Australia, it's also fully rolled out in Brisbane and I believe it's just about finished being rolled out in Melbourne too.

It's now rolled out in Perth too, I think.

Ah that’s great news, I’m from Perth but currently living abroad.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#178

Post by torton »

anigbrowl wrote: post #166
cptcobalt wrote: post #20

If you haven’t experienced suica, it’s like magically fast. Faster than NFC, faster than Apple Pay, faster than tap to pay, faster than Disney magic bands, faster than your work badge. It absolutely floored me every time I used it in Japan and it’s a full payment transaction.

Pleasant alternative from a lot of US transit systems, eg BART int eh Bay Area which is the most customer-hostile service I'eve ever used. giant gates that seem right out of a dystopian science-fiction movie, an achingly slow card readers which absolutely force you to break stride no matter how ready you are. Add in the extremely unhelpful station attendants and you've got a recipe for a public transport service that…

> ... giant gates ...

There's a big difference in antisocial behaviour and visible mental health issues between Tokyo and San Francisco.

"San Francisco’s BART found that systemwide crime fell 41 percent after new gates were installed. Even more impressively, across the ten stations with the most corrective maintenance needs, staff time spent on in-system maintenance fell 96 percent, which suggests that fare evaders also cause most unreported crime, like littering, vandalism, and graffiti."

https://www.city-journal.org/article/transit-crime-fare-gate...

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#179

Post by crote »

daremocooon wrote: post #160

I live in Tokyo and use my Suica almost every day. Suica is very convenient because it makes entering station gates very smooth. I have a question: how do people enter stations in cities outside of Japan? I have never been outside of Japan, so I was curious.

In The Netherlands it is exactly the same, just from a different vendor and with different branding. Of course the "not invented here" mentality resulted in it being woefully insecure when it was introduced in 2014, and NFC tap-to-pay with credit/debit cards, smartphones, and wearables still isn't properly implemented.

They now made the decision to completely retire the current RFID solution, because the chip vendor discontinued the lineup it relies on. Its replacement proprietary card is based on NFC tap-to-pay, so on top of terrible product compatibility during the transition period we're also getting a nice extra tap-in delay out of it.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#180

Post by crote »

rwmj wrote: post #21

Wait, the balance is stored on the card? I'm fairly sure the balance is shown in the JR app too, so presumably that cannot be the case. [Update: or maybe not? I opened the app now and it's asking me to enable NFC and hold it up to the card.] Anyway I love my Suica. I got it a good decade or more ago, I have a few thousand yen on there, and it's always ready for me when I go back to Japan. Useful on the Metro, trains…

The original Dutch system used a very similar approach: the card not only stores the balance, but also a history of taps, and information about the travel products. Your travel history is available on a website, but new trips are only shown after a terminal has asynchronously uploaded your new data.

Fixed terminals (like at a train station) near-instantly upload it, movable terminals (like in a bus) have a bit of a delay and sometimes only upload when the bus arrives back at the depot. It is possible to add new travel products or balance from an app / website, but you have to visit a special "pick-up terminal" to update the card.

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