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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

#71

Post by socalgal2 »

walthamstow wrote: post #56
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…

The funny thing about Japan is they have this wonderful universal IC card, but not everywhere accepts it, some accept only it, some only accept cash, some only cash or physical credit card, some only QR (PayPay), so you end up needing to carry several methods, and one of them is paper and coins!

Variety is good! The fact the USA only has Mastercard and Visa and that they've colluded to keep all other forms of payments out is why their fees aren't lower.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...

Japan has competition in payment systems. Paypay, D-Pay, Meri-pay, Line Pay, Rakuten Pay, etc... Each tries to entice both customers and retailers by offering discounts and bonuses.

Also I'm happy to pay cash as it's private.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#74

Post by psalaun »

phh wrote: post #67
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…

With regards to latency, in Paris the biggest hurdle to increase trafic is people. You can quite literally walk through like on the Japanese video linked. But the vast majority don't. The way it's supposed to work is that if you pass your card while the gate is opened, it keeps the gate open longer. In practice most people wait for the gate to close in front of them before reopening it. I'm not sure why people do fga…

I do wait because I'm sure that my ticket is validated, and therefore won't be fined by a controller. Sometimes the machine visual/sound signal is broken, so no way to be 100% sure.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#75

Post by artdigital »

socalgal2 wrote: post #68

I think I must be mis-understanding something > Since there's no point in generating keys for a device which will not be used in Japan, non-Japan SKUs don't have Osaifu-Keitai functionality. AFAIK, all iPhones from all regions since like iPhone 10 (internet says iPhone 7) support Osaifu-Kaitai unless I don't understand what that means. My USA iPhones works everywhere Suika, Pasmo, Icoca, etc work. Every station, bus,…

iPhones yes, Android no. Most Android devices sold outside of Japan can’t use FeliCa so you have to get the Japan model for osaifu-keitai stuff

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#76

Post by thrance »

The public transport cards here in Paris also use NFC. This means you can use your phone to recharge them, or use your phone directly to access the subway network. As far as speed goes, your card/phone is detected pretty much instantly when you tap it on the sensor, at least when the gate isn't broken.

The only time I ever had to wait in line to get into the station was after a stadium event, which is understandable. Rest of the time, you can pass the gates almost without stopping.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#77

Post by dal »

socalgal2 wrote: post #68

I think I must be mis-understanding something > Since there's no point in generating keys for a device which will not be used in Japan, non-Japan SKUs don't have Osaifu-Keitai functionality. AFAIK, all iPhones from all regions since like iPhone 10 (internet says iPhone 7) support Osaifu-Kaitai unless I don't understand what that means. My USA iPhones works everywhere Suika, Pasmo, Icoca, etc work. Every station, bus,…

Also my western Google pixel pro 9XL does not support it..while the Japanese version does. I guess google might be saving on the licensing or something.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#78

Post by lxgr »

> [...] conflict avoidance - a reader can detect when it's reading more than 1 FeliCa card at a time, and prevent any reading if so [...]

That must be one of the things that ISO 14443 has improved on then, compared to FeliCa:

At least 14443-A (and I believe also B) allows addressing each card in the field individually by its serial number, and then selectively "halt" or resume it. Practically, this means that the reader can talk to cards one by one until it finds the one it's interested in (if any).

Unfortunately I don't know any practical system making use of that (it could get pretty confusing with payment cards, for example – charging a random card of several possible ones sounds like an anti-feature), but I still find it very neat.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#79

Post by cosmic_cheese »

dadadad100 wrote: post #61
ranma42 wrote: post #57

> Since there's no point in generating keys for a device which will not be used in Japan, non-Japan SKUs don't have Osaifu-Keitai functionality. So even if you rooted your phone and had full access to the secure element, if your phone's secure element doesn't have the key, you can't use it as an IC card. At least in some cases it is sufficient to change the phone SKU id (which requires temporary rooting) to the Japan…

I believe it is the case that US (at least) iPhones work as IC cards in Japan Source - I’m sitting in Kyoto right now having travelled all over Tokyo and then on to Kyoto using only my phone to interact with Japan Rail. Verified with two 16Es and a 12. In fact we were able to add the Suica cards to our phones and charge them fromApplePay while still stateside. That let us skip the Welcome Suica line at Haneda and go…

Yes, all iPhones and Apple Watches carry the functionality regardless of where you buy them, which has been wonderful for me. The fact that the iOS Wallet app can generate these cards as needed and reload them without a third party app is a cherry on top — so nice to for once get a standardized UI instead of having to deal with some half baked transit service app.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#80

Post by lxgr »

decimalenough wrote: post #52
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…

Most, but not all. Wikipedia has a hideously convoluted diagram showing the complex web of interoperability or lack thereof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_Mutual_Usage_Servic...

The complexity is largely limited to monthly passes at this point, as far as I understand. Per the diagram (and my, very limited, personal experience), stored-value rides are supported across most systems, as there is a shared set of keys and station identifiers.
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