Autonomous decentralized high-speed processing technology and the application in an integrated IC card fixed-line and wireless system

Abstract

The IC card fare collection system (marketed as 'Suica'), introduced by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) in November 2001, is an integrated combination of fixed-line and wireless systems, where a contact-less IC card communicates by wireless with automatic fare collection devices (terminals) such as automatic fare collection gate machines (AFC gate machines), and the terminals communicate by fixed-line with center servers. In addition, the terminals and center servers are configured in autonomous decentralized architecture, so if trouble happens, the trouble does not expand into the whole system. It is necessary for terminal AFC devices to provide high-speed processing and high-reliability because of the nature of railway transportation service. For these reasons, technologies and applications that can meet these requirements have been introduced to our system. In the following, we describe the autonomous decentralized high-speed processing technology and the applications that make it possible in the IC card system (Suica) that is an integration of fixed-line and wireless technologies.