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Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

aruarian.dance

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Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#261

Post by aikinai »

pauldino wrote: post #152
delfinom wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that is correct. Patents hold it back on Android. Apple just got themselves a licensing deal that apparently lets them just have it on all phones.

The iPhone is really big in Japan (it's one of the few countries where it has a higher market share than in the US) which probably makes it more worthwhile for Apple

That doesn't make any sense. It's supported on local phones for both iOS and Android. What iOS does that's special is enable FeliCa for all regions globally. It only affects people from outside Japan traveling there.¹

Since it's not free for them, I assume they determined the amount of people in their key demographic that visit Japan was worth providing a stellar experience. Considering 2.7 million Americans visited last year, it was probably a bet that's paying off.

¹ Or, incidentally, people who live there but purchase phones overseas to avoid an obnoxious camera shutter sound forced on at all times.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#262

Post by nayuki »

notpushkin wrote: post #238
nayuki wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normal ticket gate behavior in Japan is that when you enter, the gate gives you the ticket back so that you can carry it all the way to the exit in order to prove that you traveled that journey. When you go through a ticket gate to exit the station, all Japanese ticket gates to my knowledge will dispose of your ticket.

I’ve retained at least some tickets, somehow. No idea!

I retained approximately one ticket in Japan. It was due to walking through a transfer exit gate at some station of the Tokyo Metro, which lets you walk through a non-fare-paid area to re-enter another station.

I also retained all the Shinkansen seat reservation tickets (特急券) back when I had the old-style JR Pass, where you always had to enter/exit stations with help from the station attendant - and not use automatic ticket gates. I haven't tried the current style of JR Pass (since maybe 2022?), but I imagine that the exit gate would eat your seat reservation ticket, just like if you had bought the ticket in cash.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#263

Post by notpushkin »

lxgr wrote: post #260
notpushkin wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve only used them twice (on Sinkansen, and on a regular train in Hokkaido), and it was nearly instantaneous – about as fast as an IC card. The whole experience felt like magic: you put the tichets into a slot, whoosh! – and you pick them up on the other side. It is true that they are expensive to produce and hard to recycle, though, so it’s a good idea overall. But I’ll miss this iconic experience (or hopefully the…

It’s not quite the same, but if you tap your IC card with a preloaded Shinkansen ticket, you at least get a rapidly printed seat indicator :) Another cool thing about the paper tickets is that you can supposedly insert them stacked (i.e. both Shinkansen and regional transit ticket at a transit gate), and the gate will figure out which one to eat and which one to hand back to you!

Hmm, I thought you can preload a transit ticket but still need to buy a paper-only Shinkansen seat ticket :thinking:

And yeah, the ticket unstacking feature is really neat! (and probably it’s one of the reasons they want to replace the paper tickets – it’s a pretty complex machine on the inside :-)

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#264

Post by bamboozled »

rootsudo wrote: post #154
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…

paypay to setup for QR code is just 2 minutes, and you get lots of bonuses, just have to suffer the trial by fire of your katakana matching your resident card ID name, which, everyone has their own version of.

I tried it said ten days to verify, then it failed...because my name was wrong. Gave up.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#265

Post by bamboozled »

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 heard you can pay a lot of bills via PayPay, so I wanted to use that too but I haven't been able to beat the authentication boss either.

So so many weird quirks, my latest one is, I cannot withdraw cash from any ATM but a 7/11 ATM with a Seven bank card. All other ATMs just won't accept it anymore...how does one even begin to resolve something like this ?

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#266

Post by bamboozled »

coolcase wrote: post #65

They are OK. I find Sydney ones more reliably tap, plus you can use just a credit card to tap, as well as use a credit card to buy the Opal card. You can buy the opal card at 100s of places not just train stations. The actual transport itself is better in Tokyo tho.

I like how in Sydney you can just tap on and tap off (in a lot of situation) without a gate. Like the light rail, you don't have to have all the pressure of getting through a gate with 100 people behind you like in Tokyo.

When your card fails in Tokyo, it's such a stressful event, and you have to do that "huff, turn around & stomp off" thing everyone does...

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#267

Post by lmz »

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…

The majority of the fees go to the issuing bank (as the entity providing credit), not the card network.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#268

Post by notpushkin »

nayuki wrote: post #262
notpushkin wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve retained at least some tickets, somehow. No idea!

I retained approximately one ticket in Japan. It was due to walking through a transfer exit gate at some station of the Tokyo Metro, which lets you walk through a non-fare-paid area to re-enter another station. I also retained all the Shinkansen seat reservation tickets (特急券) back when I had the old-style JR Pass, where you always had to enter/exit stations with help from the station attendant - and not use automatic…

Hmmm, what if you don’t insert your seat reservation ticket on the exit?

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#269

Post by m-schuetz »

Symbiote wrote: post #251
m-schuetz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've went through gates without ticket several times for reasons like access to coin lockers or switching to the other track when I've entered the wrong one. Gate guards usually hand you a slip that explains the situation at the other gate or when leaving again.

I've had the opposite: I entered a large station at the west entrance as a transfer from a local train run by a different company. The platform I needed was next to the east entrance. Fine. On the platform was a sign (in English!) reminding tourists they needed a seat reservation, which I hadn't purchased. The sign said the machine to issue the seat supplements was at the east entrance — the other side of the gates f…

I fully agree that the base fare + whatever on top type of ticketing system is needlessly complex and confusing. We've almost missed a train because we were not aware we needed to buy base fare separately, and only found out because we asked a station employee for the way to the tracks who then informed us we're missing some tickets.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#270

Post by kccqzy »

From the user experience perspective, the Bay Area Clipper card might be the closest to these IC cards in Asia. It's also a stored value card. The official Clipper app allows you to transfer the card to be an NFC card on the phone and inspect the value on it, entirely offline. (Of course to support the use case of automatically adding value to the card when it's below the threshold necessarily requires the fare reader to be internet connected, but such an internet connection is not on the critical path.) From my Apple Watch there is even no need to press any button to activate (unlike Apple Pay EMV transactions): just hold the watch next to the reader and it works. They are weirder than other public transport payment systems like Chicago CTA or NYC MTA, and are also more wonderful.
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