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by pknomad11 hours ago |
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upvoteby Tor310 hours ago|
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I've used a Suica card for many years now. I agree it's both fast and reliable. One summer I was crisscrossing Tokyo by train over several days, using the Suica card, so I got to see a LOT of commuters. Lots of people were in a hurry and would run through the gates (the default state is open, it closes quickly if your card is out of funds or some other problem). Running through the gates while quickly touching the card to the reader. I've done that a couple of times myself.

It's also useful in that you can pre-order a Shinkansen ticket, for example, and link that purchase to your Suica card, which you then use for the Shinkansen gate. If there are other fees (which there may be) they're just deducted from the money the card holds, as usual. Makes everything very simple.

For me a physical card is easier than using a phone. A phone is so much larger so I would need to get it from a pocket somewhere, while the Suica card I can keep in my jeans pocket or some other easy place.

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upvoteby m4rtink1 hours ago|
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It was funny during Expo in Osaka on the massive metro station - you could just zip in with the suica, while the less knowledgeable foreign tourists would form long queues in front of the special gates where they could pay by a payment card, which were glacialy slow in comparison.
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upvoteby ks17238 hours ago|
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I also did prefer my plastic Pasmo (essentially the same as suica) card until I learned during my last trip, that it can only be recharged with cash :-/
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upvoteby wst_4 minutes ago|
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You can create digital Pasmo and charge it through mobile wallet.
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upvoteby Marsymars6 hours ago|
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This doesn't especially bother me, but it is a kinda funny workflow to go to an ATM to withdraw cash (with your bank card) only to immediately put it back into the machine (to charge your IC card).
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upvoteby flaunf2217 hours ago|
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> People not in Japan/Singapore/Korea/China should experience what a proper transit card done looks like.

In Prague city transit does not have limiting gates. If you bought unlimited ticket, you just walk in bus/tram/metro and that is it. No touching, scanning, showing, nothing. Maybe once a month (or even rarer) you might encounter a patrolling controller who would ask you to show your ticket, but that's it.

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upvoteby disposedtrolley1 hours ago|
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Same in Berlin. I think the reasoning is that it'd cost more money to fit ticket gates compared to loss of revenue from fare evaders.

Makes for such a smooth journey as most people are doing the right thing.

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upvoteby dluan9 hours ago|
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I much prefer convenient over fast, being able to just tap my phone's uploaded IC card/alipay without having to open it up or switch cards is maybe 200ms slower, but I don't have to think or change what I'm doing. Plus with alipay it will just autodeduct so I don't ever have to think about that as well, though Apple wallet Suica makes it easy to reload too.
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upvoteby numpad08 hours ago|
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JRE required Suica to be instantly accessible so there's a setting in Apple Wallet to set a card to a default quick transit use card(forgot the exact name). If configured as such, just poking the gate antenna with earpiece end of an iPhone instantly completes the transaction just as fast as a real card does.

(yes, the antenna is in the top FaceID/Dynamic Island area, Osaifu Keitai spec requires a □つ icon wherever antenna is located, which Apple managed to completely ignore)

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upvoteby mikestew7 hours ago|
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a setting in Apple Wallet to set a card to a default quick transit use card

Because it's not the easiest setting to find: Settings/Wallet & Apple Pay/Express Transit Card

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upvoteby disposedtrolley1 hours ago|
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The Wallet app prompts you to set this up when you initially add the transit card too, IIRC.
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upvoteby Terr_6 hours ago|
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FWIW on Android, Google Wallet tells me "Transit Cards: These cards never require verification", and indeed I can just wave my phone at the terminal without unlocking it.
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upvoteby blks6 hours ago|
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And here I was all this time double pressing power button to open wallet like a fool. The more you know.
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upvoteby jen206 hours ago|
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Is this different to Express Mode, which has been a thing for years for all kinds of cards (including car keys)?
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upvoteby kalleboo3 hours ago|
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Express Mode originally launched as Express Transit with only support for Suica, Beijing and Shanghai cards. It was then renamed to Express Mode when support for the other modes was added.
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upvoteby kevin_thibedeau8 hours ago|
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This is a consequence of the world being eaten by managed code. IBM made POS checkout terminals that were blazingly fast 40 years ago. Now every modern data processing technogy is glacial by comparison.
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upvoteby otterley5 hours ago|
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The story makes clear that constraints matter. Product teams build against specified constraints. If latency isn’t one of them, they’re going to sacrifice it if it helps meet the defined requirements more quickly and cost-effectively.

Every time I see a shoddy piece of work, I know which constraint was sacrificed.

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upvoteby hbarka6 hours ago|
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Alipay in China for transit and pay is also easy. No card, just a QR on your phone. It can even be a screenshot of the QR code.
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upvoteby dyllon1 hours ago|
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QRs will always be so much more cumbersome than blindly tapping a card or your phone.
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upvoteby disposedtrolley1 hours ago|
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Agreed. It also requires that you unlock your phone.
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