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Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

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Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#221

Post by no_wizard »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #206
starttoaster wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA has Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and AmEx. Each of which try to entice their customers by offering better rewards programs. Though AmEx isn't taken everywhere (notably Costco) and Discover is hit and miss as well.

The rewards programs are the anti-competitive lock-in. Visa and Mastercard charge high fees because their dominant market position forces merchants to accept them. Then they use part of the fees to bribe customers with rewards programs. A new payment network doesn't have leverage against merchants so can't charge the same high fees and therefore can't offer the same rewards programs, but then they can't get consumers…

This is a great argument for forcing network interop. Akin to net neutrality, allow card companies to transit over the network for reasonable rates. This removes any networks ability to squeeze things like this

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#222

Post by xorcist »

mschild wrote: post #17
TheChaplain wrote: post #14

I love IC cards. They had them on all transport where I live, but a few years ago they changed to QR codes.. Now it's a fiddle with an app, then try to get the right angle on a smudgy reader. Getting onboard takes much longer and it feels like technology sent us 2 steps back instead of forward. IC cards are better, and if they could be integrated in the phone then it would be even better and faster for everyone.

Would printing out the QR code and putting it into your wallet work or is it a changing one?

Printing out the QR code and giving out to all your friends?

I think most QR systems include some sort of rolling timestamp to combat that.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#223

Post by grishka »

I'm not sure about the speed argument. My city uses stored-value cards based on Mifare Classic and Mifare Plus (depending on the type of the ticket). If you live here and use the public transit with any regularity, you don't stop when you're going through the turnstile. The card validation isn't instant by any means, but it takes just enough time that you can plop your card on the reader as soon as you can reach it and keep walking, and it'll be done by the time you need to rotate the thingy that's in your way. On most stations, the bottleneck isn't the turnstiles, it's the escalators.

On the security side, yeah, someone did exploit those Mifare key extraction vulnerabilities and make an app to clone cards and restore dumps. The system collates all data every night so if you mess with your ticket, it'll get banned. So you're getting one day of free rides at most, and forfeit the remaining balance and the cost of the card itself.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#224

Post by makeitdouble »

lmm wrote: post #118
makeitdouble wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle: mass transit is seen at best as a cost center in the west, when it's more expected to be a fully profitable business in Japan [0] Paris adopted an IC system as well and it is pretty usable, but not pushed to the extremes of the JR system because they weren't ready to invest as much, manage the money aspect and really make it a full blown business. [0] some lines and areas are definitely money pits. Tha…

Japan hugely subsidizes public transport both directly and indirectly, e.g. almost all employers will pay for employees to commute by public transport but not by car, because the government heavily incentivises them to do so. The Japanese transport providers are indeed more entrepreneurial about this kind of stuff, but I think that's more a case of Japan having high trust in government and quasi-governmental entities…

Companies paying for public transport is a matter of flooring the commute cost: (almost) nobody lives in an area with no public transportation and car commute costs more, so companies will pay the price for lowest commute and you get to decide what you do with it.

Same thing if your train transit costs 440 yens at base rate but you decide to ride first class or even one of the special luxury trains at a thousand+ yens, you'll only get the base 440 yens from your company.

On profitability, as mentioned by sister comment, they all have a realtor arm and also rent the space surrounding the stations to shopping malls and department stores, sometimes own or revenue share with the attractions in the town that will bring more visitors and they'll talk with he city planners to foster a whole ecosystem, JR famously gets a cut from every Suica transaction etc.

They don't need to make it all from the ride ticket, even if it's price appropriately. Government has little to do with most of it, subsidies only matter on the smaller, super low volume lines where rising prices would kill the traffic.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#225

Post by whoisyc »

isatty wrote: post #207
astrange wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese transit-using society is old and middle-class; those are the kind of people who follow rules. Americans are often more rule bound than Japanese people (we have HOAs and Nextdoor), but we just don't respect transit systems as much because we think of them as gifts we give to the poor/mentally ill/homeless. And then a lot of Americans have an anti-gentrification ideology ("rent-lowering gunshots" or "neighborh…

Japanese transit using society is not all old and middle class: it’s pretty much everyone who is not filthy rich isn’t it?

[dead]

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#226

Post by abdullahkhalids »

Late to the party. These cards are stored-value ones. And they seem to be very secure.

Does this mean that the offline digital cash problem has been solved, as far as in-person customer to merchant payment system goes?

You can trust an arbitrary person giving you money through the card just as well as if they gave you cash. Could you turn this into a pay-anyone-money using cards and card readers?

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#227

Post by wolfd »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #55

I don't understand -- we are talking about 100ms or so of latency? which is almost completely dwarfed by any mechanical action such as the gates actually opening?? This is about as ridiculous as it gets. The videos that compare the UK system with the JP system practically show the same throughput, even when in the UK video most people are using magnetic/paper tickets (which by necessity are going to be much slower th…

The gates are extremely fast, and you don’t need to wait at all when you tap your card. In practice, this ends up being a pretty big deal for the number of passengers going through some of those gates. The whole experience is noticeably faster than any other ticket gate I’ve been through.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#228

Post by notpushkin »

danielhep wrote: post #147
lhl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's about equal for utility - Japanese Suica/Pasmo cards are also usable in every single konbini, at all the stations stores, across most regional transportation and taxis, and at maybe half of Tokyo shops/restaurants (it's a default option in AirPay and other PoS systems). A lot of vending machines accept Suica, and I use it at grocery or drug stores. You can even use it at some other types of shops like Bi…

You can even use them at international chains like Starbucks, IKEA, and McDonalds.

Thailand and Malaysia also do this (not sure about IKEA, but definitely McDonalds and konbini, and probably Starbucks too)

In Istanbul I think you can use the transport card to pay in some supermarkets, and of course it works on all transportation modes, including ferries. (As an aside, they also have a QR-code based system specifically for restaurants, which I think is used mainly by companies looking to compensate their workers lunches, but you can also use it in Ininal app to get a discount)

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#229

Post by notpushkin »

thm wrote: post #59
tkgally wrote: post #28

Long-time Japan resident here. The IC cards do work quickly and smoothly, but the retail payment system overall is a mess because different stores accept different combinations of dozens of electronic payment brands. When shopping, I prefer to use the Suica app in my iPhone as it’s just a quick touch, but some stores won’t accept it so I have to use the Nanaco app—which requires a face recognition step—or pay in cash…

I found Suica/Pasmo/Icoca to be the golden trinity for most regions.

Those are interchangeable – you can (generally) use Suica if a store accepts Icoca and vice versa, etc.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#230

Post by lyall »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #226

Late to the party. These cards are stored-value ones. And they seem to be very secure. Does this mean that the offline digital cash problem has been solved, as far as in-person customer to merchant payment system goes? You can trust an arbitrary person giving you money through the card just as well as if they gave you cash. Could you turn this into a pay-anyone-money using cards and card readers?

The whole system is quite tightly controlled by the transit companies (e.g. JR East). For example, your average payment terminal can take money off of a card but not load money onto it (refunds have to be done out of band). Loading money onto cards is more privileged, as it’s equivalent to printing money.

One other limitation in place is that these transit cards have a limit of ¥20,000 (~140 USD) max that can be loaded on to them. So any transaction larger than that is out of the question.

So to answer your question, no this isn’t really a person-to-person cash replacement. It’s a transit card that happens to be able to be used as an offline payment method, but it’s got various limitations and weirdness that prevent it from being something more.

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