Standardization of Technology for IC Card Ticket System

Summary form only given. "Suica," an IC card ticket system in East Japan Railway Company (JR East), has grown to over 20 million issues in five and a half years since its debut in November 18, 2001. Numerous tickets must be processed at the gates immediately to secure the smooth flow of passengers in Tokyo metropolitan area, where high frequent and mass transport is provided. The passengers, on the other hand, find importance of being free from the stresses buying tickets and adjusting fares. Suica was just an alternative ticket on JR East lines in Tokyo metropolitan area when it started. Supported by the passengers, Suica has expanded its available area in Tokyo metropolitan area and added new areas of Sendai and Niigata. Now IC card ticket systems have been introduced in other railway companies. Those companies and JR East accept IC card tickets each other. That is, Suica can be used in much wider areas. As the volume reaches a certain amount of transport cards, Suica is used in other functions. In particular e-money function shows remarkable growth to over 520 thousand a day (April 13, 2007). The development of Suica has focused on high performance and high reliability. The smartcards under standardization in ISO, however, could not satisfy the requirements, especially high performance. The gap between the requirements and the standard made it extremely difficult to procure the exact smartcards needed. Upon the recent procedure for international standardization of "Interoperable Fare Management System," the past experiences encourage us to advocate implementing the users' needs into the standard. Finally we can contribute to the standardization incorporating the users' needs. This keynote introduces these cases and emphasizes the importance of standardization of technology according to users' needs.