Suica

The Suica is a contactless rechargeable electronic ticket in the form of a credit card-sized smart card in the territory of Tokyo - Kanto in the railway network of the East Japan Railway Company ( JR East ) can be used in Japan. It was introduced in November 2001, since June 2003, they can be combined with an issued by JR credit card.

In November 2003, the Suica was tentatively first used as an electronic wallet for payment in station kiosks. This function has now been massively expanded to other businesses.

The card can contact, are used by simple stripes over a reader. One taking the card out of the wallet is not necessary, thereby considerably faster payment is made possible as with cash. For the card is correspondingly popular with the customers and the merchants.

Also offers the ability to let the transactions carried out subsequently to print as an overview, a high level of transparency on payments. The transaction data is stored under the identification number of the card in a central system.

Due to the in contrast to the German bank card easy usability, the Suica is very popular; in April 2006, there were about 16 million users, even though the card has not even been introduced across the board in Japan.

NTT Docomo, by far the largest mobile phone provider in Japan, has since 2006 mobile phones with integrated Suica function. These also offer the possibility to check the card activity and account balance at any time and to take boots online.

Initially, only valid in local traffic around Tokyo, the Suica was then introduced in the operated by JR East Shinkansen lines (Tohoku and Joetsu ) as well as in the Greater Sendai and Niigata.

For the Greater Osaka JR West has brought out the ICOCA IC card in November 2003; since August 2004, it is also accepted in the field of JR East, according to the Suica in Osaka. The extension to private railways, subways and buses in Osaka and Tokyo is provided by steps for the years after 2005.

The abbreviation Suica stands for " Super Urban Intelligent Card " (Eng. smart city card) and is also a pun on the Japanese words for " quickly, easily " ( Suisui niスイスイ に) and " map " ( kaado ,カード) and thus to that " suika " (スイカ), which in turn is the Japanese word for watermelon. The letters "IC" are highlighted to emphasize the smart card technology.

The card can be purchased for 2,000 yen Midori no Madoguchi switches or at the ticket machine. The price includes a deposit of 500 yen, which will be refunded upon return of the card. The remaining 1,500 yen can be used for train rides. Refill up to 20,000 yen exist at selected ticket machines. The credit can be checked there and also a record of travel expenses can be printed out.

There are two types of Suica, a Suica IO card, which is used as a spare ticket for train rides, and a commuter card ( for example, Location - work / school) for the journey between two locations is considered. The commuter card can also be used as ordinary Suica IO card.

The card contains an RFID chip ( radio frequency identification), which was developed by Sony under the name Felica. The same technique is still used for the following transport associations:

  • Atlanta: MARTA Breeze Card for
  • Hong Kong: Octopus card for the MTR and retail
  • Kaohsiung: easy card for KMRT
  • Singapore: EZ -link card for the MRT ( Singapore)
  • Taipei: easy card for the MRT
Ikebukuro Station Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority Easycard Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit EZ-Link Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)
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