SUICA and e-money for transport

(c) 2014 Eurotechnology Japan KK www.eurotechnology.com SUICA and e-money for transport (13th Edition) May 12, 20141
SUICA AND E-MONEY
FORTRANSPORT
By Gerhard Fasol PhD

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SUMMARY: SUICA AND E-
MONEY FORTRANSPORT
• SUICA is a IC-card system developed and owned by Japan’s JR-East railway company, and based on SONY’s FELICA
wireless non-contact multi-application IC-card technology.

• SUICA was developed primarily to replace mechanical ticket gates (which have many moving parts and are expensive
to maintain) which are reaching their end of life and to reduce cash handling costs.

• JR East is one of the world’s largest passenger railway companies withYEN 2635 Billion (US$ 27.7 Billion) in sales, of
which 67.5% (YEN 1778 Billion, US$ 18.7 billion) is for railway transportation.Therefore the SUICA system in the mid
to long term targets an annual transaction volume of US$ 18 billion within JR-East plus e-commerce transactions plus
usage by other railway companies as a “white label” contactless ticketing platform and e-commerce platform.

• SUICA and related contactless payment system, including mobile phone based variants are on the way to become one
of the world’s largest contactless payment system
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AGENDA
• What is the meaning of SUICA?

• Competitive landscape of Japan’s emerging electronic cash and electronic payment industry

• What is SUICA and why.

• SUICA business models

• Suica statistics, history and time line

• SUICA and PASMO

• Major electronic payment systems for transport:

• PASMO

• Icoca

• Pitapa

• Toica

• The SUICA platform

• SUICA e-tickets and mobile e-tickets for First ClassTravel e-Tickets

• SUICA as prepaid electronic cash

• Case study: SUICA for luggage lockers and parcel services

• Mobile SUICA - SUICA for mobile phones

• “ExpressYoyaku” and “ExpressYoyaku IC service” for Shinkansen express trains

• Case study: mobile phone payments and reservations for regional lines - Odakyu-Romance car

• What are wallet phones and why

• Felica Networks

• SUICA’s technology:The FELICA platform

• FELICA and Mifare

• Summary
6

WHAT ISTHE MEANING OF “SUICA”?
• SUICA is one of the foundations for JR-East’s business (JR-East’s main business are of course railway
operations)

• JR-East says that SUICA stands for:

• Super

• Urban

• Intelligent

• Card

• In Japanese language “suisui” is an adverb meaning: smoothly, unhindered, therefore “sui” in “SUICA”
reminds of moving smoothly

• (In Japanese language “suica” means “water melon”, Japanese people are fond of eating cooled water
melons “suica” during the hot summer season)
7

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE OF JAPAN’S EMERGING
ELECTRONIC CASH AND ELECTRONICS PAYMENT
INDUSTRY
8

WHAT IS SUICA AND WHY
14

PROMOTING SUICATO REPLACE CASH
• JR-EAST heavily promotes SUICA cards for payments beyond rail travel to expand JR-EAST business into new areas, such as retail

• This kiosk insideTokyo’s Ueno Station is decorated to promote SUICA payments

• Characters are often used in marketing in Japan to bind consumers emotionally to abstract products such as SUICA. SUICA uses a penguin character
15

SUICA =THIRD GENERATION FARE COLLECTION
19
Generation Period Technology
1st Generation Before 1970s
Paper tickets, cash,
collection by hand,
visual inspection
2nd Generation 1970s-201x Magnetic tickets
3rd Generation From 2004
Multi-application
wireless non-contact
IC cards

SUICA BUSINESS MODEL
22

JR EAST –THE WORLD’S
BIGGEST RAILWAY COMPANY
• JR East is a private railway company with net proﬁt margins around 5%.

• SUICA is one of the most important components of JR East’s business plan for increased proﬁtability
23

JR-EAST
24
JR-East JR East is one of the largest passenger railway companies in the world
Founded
April 1, 1987 as a consequence of privatization of Japan’s former National Railways
JNR
Railway track length
Shinkansen (high speed): 1052.9km

Total track: 7526.8km
Headquarters Tokyo-Shinjuku
Stock Exchange TokyoTSE 9020
Number of employees 61,900 (April 1, 2008)
Major share holders
JapanTrustee Services Bank (6.61%)

MasterTrust Bank of Japan (4.93%)

Bank ofTokyo Mitsubishi UFJ (3.13%)

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (2.63%)

Mizuho Corporate Bank (2.50%)

Mizuho Bank (2.50%)

JR East Employee Shareholding Assoc. (2.46%)

Nippon Life (2.00%)

Dai-Ichi Life (1.78%)

JR-EAST
25
JR-East Financials (projection for FY2010, ending March 2010)
Consolidated Sales
Transportation: YEN 1778 Billion (US$ 18.7 billion) (67.5%)
Station space usage YEN 416 Billion (US$ 4.4 billion) (15.8%)
Shopping Centers: YEN 232 Billion (US$ 2.4 billion) (8.8%)
Other: YEN 209 Billion (US$ 2.2 billion) (7.9%)
Total
YEN 2635 Billion (US$ 27.7 Billion)

(target FY ending March 2010)
Ordinary income YEN 246 Billion (US$ 2.6 Billion)
Ordinary proﬁt margin = 9.3%
Net income YEN 134 Billion (US$ 1.4 Billion)
Net proﬁt margin = 5.1%

QUANTITATIVE DATA AND
TIME LINE
29

“TOUCH AND GO”
• During the testing and planning of the SUICA system, one question was how the payment
transaction should be planned.

• Should the reader/writer act at a distance, i.e. when a person walks with the SUICA card in his/
her pocket or in his/her bag, should the reader/writer respond

• Should it be sufﬁcient to move the SUICA card at a distance from the reader/writer

• Should it be necessary to press the SUICA card onto the reader/writer surface?

• During the testing it was found the the best method was “touch and go”, i.e. the user touches the
reader/writer surface with the SUICA card (which may be inside the wallet or a card holder) to
allow sufﬁcient time for reliable data communication between IC-card and the gate.The ticket
gate is shaped to enable reliable communication.

• Thus “Touch and go” was selected also as a marketing slogan for SUICA
36

PASMO
37

MARKETING PASMO: PASMO-ROBOT CHARACTER
• Marketing in Japan often uses characters associated with
products or services

• SUICA uses a penguin

• Pasmo uses the “Pasmo robot character”

• The Pasmo robot character has the following
characteristics:

• And antenna on the head to catch the latest information

• A PASMO card in his right hand

• A pocket on his chest to stow away his PASMO-card

• And tires on his shoes, which can take him anywhere

• Characters are aimed to create emotional links to
abstract products such as SUICA and PASMO
44

REGIONAL SYSTEMS
45

THE ICOCA SYSTEM
46

THE PITAPA SYSTEM
50

PITAPA REMOTE PASSENGER MONITORING
SERVICE
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FROM AUGUST 1, 2006: JOINT USE  
OF SUICA, ICOCA AND PITAPA
56

TOICA INTHE CHUBU/
NAGOYA AREA
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THETOICA CARD SYSTEM
• Technology: FeliCa (SONY)

• Operator: JR-Central (= JR-Tokai) Railway company in the
Nagoya area

• Functions are almost the same as the SUICA card in the
Tokyo/Yokohama/Chiba + Sendai areas and Icoca in Kansai

• Introduction: 2006
60

JAL CARD SUICA: 
COMBINING SUICA WITH  
THE JAPAN AIRLINES MILEAGEBANK
61

THE SUICA PLATFORM
64

SUICA FOR FIRST-CLASS
TRAVEL E-TICKETS
71

SUICA FOR FIRST-CLASS E-TICKETS
74

SUICA AS ELECTRONIC CASH
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SUICA AND PASMO  
AS A SECURE ID IN COMBINATION WITH PAYMENT 
 
CASE STUDIES: 
SERVICE UNITS FOR LEFT LUGGAGE AND POSTING OF
PARCELS
89

SUIPO = SUICA POSTER 
AN OPT-IN INTERACTIVE
ADVERTISING SYSTEM
93

EZ-FELICA 
KDDI’S WALLET PHONE
• for more about KDDI: 
http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/kddi/
108

KDDI’S WALLET PHONE: EZFELICA
• EZ FeliCa for train barriers
110
• W32H wallet phone by Hitachi

JR-TOKAI’S EXPRESSCARD AND EX-IC SERVICE 
 
CONTACTLESS IC-CARDS AND WALLET PHONES FOR
THETOKYO-OSAKATOKAIDO-SHINKANSEN
111

ODAKYU ROMANCE CAR @CLUB 
AS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OFTICKETS BY MOBILE
PHONE
• RailTicket Purchase By Mobile Phone

• TypicalTransaction by Mobile Phone: US$ 5
126

ODAKYU ROMANCE CAR @CLUB
• The Odakyu Railway line is one of many commuter railway line networks in
the west ofTokyo an extends out into the Hakone resort areas.

• The Odakyu Railway operators reservation-only “Romance Car” trains
(shown on the left) which are much more comfortable then the usual almost
standing-room only commuter trains.“Romance car” trains are used by
commuters in the evening to return home more comfortably, for shopping
trips, for short-distance business trips (e.g. to the high-tech R&D labs in
Atsugi) and to visit the Hakone resort area.

• Odakyu is using a self-service reservation system for customers to book an
purchase seats on the reservation-only Romance-Cars via mobile phone.

• Although we did not ﬁnd ﬁgures released by Odakyu, we estimate that
10%-20% of seats are sold mobile phone.
127

MOBILE SUICATECHNOLOGY:
FELICA BASED WALLET
PHONES
132

SUICA’STECHNOLOGY: 
THE FELICA PLATFORM
138

SECURITY AND PRIVACY
147

FELICA FOR
TRANSPORTATION: 
OCTOPUS, SUICA, ICOCA…
151

FELICA BASEDTRAVEL CARDS
155
Octopus-card (Hong Kong) Travel Card (New Delhi, India)
Metro (Bangkok)ez-link card (Singapore)

FELICA BASEDTRANSPORTTICKETS IN JAPAN
• JR-East is the leader in introducing FeliCa based ticketing in Japan.The ﬁrst railway operator to introduce FeliCa in Japan under the SUICA brand. JR-East is developing SUICA into a platform
for multiple applications: prepaid electronic cash, commuter monthly passes, prepaid train travel, link with JR-East’sVIEW credit card, payment for SHINKANSEN Super Express train travel

• Recently JR-East is also winning other smaller rail operators to join the SUICA platform

• Other rail operators in Japan create their own FeliCa based payment platform, such asTokyu-Railways (the Seta-Maru travel ticket for theTokyu-Setagaya-line is shown in Orange below -
now discontinued and superseded by the PASMO card)
156

FELICA BASEDTRANSPORTTICKETS,  
STUDENT-IDS,AND OTHER CHIP-CARDS IN JAPAN
157

FELICA & MIFARE
160

SUMMARY
165

SUMMARY: SUICA, PASMO AND RELATED SMART-CARDS
• SUICA is a IC-card system developed and owned by Japan’s JR-East railway company since the 1980s, and today based
on SONY’s FELICA wireless non-contact multi-application IC-card technology.

• SUICA was developed primarily to replace mechanical ticket gates (which have many moving parts and are expensive
to maintain) which are reaching their end of life and to reduce cash handling costs.

• JR East is the world’s largest passenger railway company withYEN 2635 Billion (US$ 27.7 Billion) in sales, of which
67.5% (YEN 1778 Billion, US$ 18.7 billion) is for railway transportation.Therefore the SUICA system in the mid to long
term targets an annual transaction volume of US$ 18 billion within JR-East plus e-commerce transactions plus usage by
other railway companies as a “white label” contactless ticketing solution.

• SUICA and related contactless payment system, including mobile phone based variants are on the way to become the
world’s largest contactless payment system

• Today the majority of transportation companies in Japan use Felica based smart cards for contactless ticketing and many
are directly compatible with JR-East’s SUICA, which is the dominating player in this ﬁeld
166

MORE INFORMATION
167
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• twitter: http://twitter.com/gfasol/

• website: http://www.eurotechnology.com/

• personal site: http://fasol.com

CONTACT
168
• Eurotechnology Japan KK,Tokyo, Japan.

• http://www.eurotechnology.com/

• CEO: Gerhard Fasol

• Mobile +81-90-8594-6291

• Email: fasol@eurotechnology.com and gfasol@gmail.com

SUICA and e-money for transport

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