交通系ICカード
A railway IC card is an electronic ticket medium used on participating trains, buses and other transport. Suica and PASMO are service brands; a physical card and a phone are different ways of carrying a ticket. In PASMO’s stored-fare rail example, touching in and out lets the system settle the journey against the balance.
Stored fare, a commuter pass and retail payment are separate functions.
Mutual acceptance does not automatically permit a through journey between every two areas.
Area, operator and special-service conditions still matter.
IC stands for integrated circuit. A transport IC card carries a chip that exchanges information with a reader without electrical contact. In FeliCa, for example, communication uses electromagnetic waves emitted by the reader. The card is presented at the marked pad rather than fed into a paper-ticket slot.
For an ordinary PASMO stored-fare rail journey, the entry touch records the starting station without deducting that journey’s fare. Touching the same card at exit pairs that record with the destination and settles the fare. One card carries one passenger’s journey, not several simultaneous entries for a group. If the balance is short at exit, settlement remains incomplete until a supported top-up or fare adjustment resolves it.
Suppose the card holds ¥1,000 before entry. It still holds ¥1,000 after entry; an example exit fare of ¥200 leaves ¥800. These invented teaching amounts exclude autocharge and travel covered by a commuter pass. In a separate shortfall case at exit, the balance is ¥100 and the fare ¥200. Adding ¥1,000 makes ¥1,100 available; settling the fare then leaves ¥900.
The person and gates are schematic. The example below uses ordinary PASMO stored-value travel and an assumed ¥200 fare, excluding auto-charge and commuter-pass coverage.
Conceptual PASMO stored-fare rail example, excluding journeys covered by a commuter pass and autocharge. Amounts are invented teaching figures, not a quoted route fare. These panels represent records and balances, not screens on the card.
¥1,000 − ¥200 = ¥800
A top-up increases stored value. Buying a commuter pass provides travel entitlement for its specified section, period and conditions. Both functions may coexist on one card; adding money does not automatically buy a pass.
Charging, or topping up, adds money to the stored-fare balance. PASMO lists supported station machines, bus offices or vehicles, and some stores as channels. Not every reader is a top-up machine. Autocharge is a separately arranged service, rather than a promise that every card replenishes itself whenever its balance runs out.
A PASMO commuter pass records travel entitlement for its specified section and conditions. Stored value can settle applicable travel outside that section. Both can coexist on one card: topping up increases the balance, while the pass supplies the purchased travel entitlement.
Settles applicable fares; a top-up adds money.
Provides travel entitlement for its section, period and conditions; purchased separately.
A named PASMO is for its registered holder and can be reissued after loss under the rules. An anonymous PASMO can be used by its bearer but cannot be replaced after loss. Bearer use does not mean one card may take a whole group through the gates at once. Identity and replacement conditions are part of the ticket rules.
For its registered holder; reissue after loss follows the rules.
May be used by its bearer, but not replaced after loss; still one simultaneous passenger.
Postpay means using a service before settling its charge. Ordinary journeys in PiTaPa’s postpay area use that model. Qualifying JR West postpay-area journeys, made with the same card through entry and exit automatic gates, likewise do not deduct the ordinary fare from charged value. Other nationwide interoperable areas require advance charge, excluding JR West’s defined postpay area. The journey’s area and the card’s payment arrangement determine which function applies.
Ordinary eligible travel is settled afterward; defined JR West use has its own area and automatic-gate conditions.
Advance charge is needed, excluding the defined JR West postpay area.
Suica and PASMO name service brands. Named or anonymous status concerns the permitted user and loss procedures; a physical card or phone describes the carrier; prepaid or postpay describes settlement. These describe different aspects of a card, and a service need not offer every combination.
Each service need not offer every combination.
Nationwide mutual use connects ten services, including Suica, PASMO, Hokkaido’s Kitaca and ICOCA in Kansai and other regions. Cards can be accepted on participating transport and at participating shops, while individual lines or vehicles may remain outside the arrangement.
JR Central gives Asakusa–Ningyōchō within the PASMO area and Sapporo–Otaru within Kitaca as examples of using TOICA elsewhere. That extends the places accepting the card; it does not join distant areas into one journey. Its boundary diagram places Hikone–Maibara–Samegai–Ōgaki across ICOCA and TOICA areas and marks the boundary as unavailable for an ordinary stored-fare through journey. The guidance separately allows specified exceptions, including metropolitan Suica/PASMO use, and qualifies travel within commuter-pass sections.
TOICA in the PASMO area: Asakusa–Ningyōchō; in Kitaca: Sapporo–Otaru.
Hikone–Maibara–Samegai–Ōgaki crosses ICOCA/TOICA areas; ordinary stored-fare through travel is unavailable.
A schematic of the rules, not a geographic map. Specified exceptions, including metropolitan Suica/PASMO use, and commuter-pass conditions are separate.
Suica added electronic-money service on March 22, 2004, extending its use from transport ticketing into shopping. An electronic-money mark identifies accepted shop payments, not railway journey boundaries. PiTaPa has its own postpay shopping service but is excluded from nationwide ten-card electronic-money interoperability; its charged balance cannot be spent on shopping. A transport-card name therefore needs to be understood alongside the particular payment function being used.
Checks whether participating transport accepts the service.
Checks shop payment. PiTaPa is outside nationwide ten-card e-money use, while offering its own postpay shopping service.
Using a card in another area does not mean it can be bought, refunded or reissued there, or that local points and discounts transfer. TOICA explicitly preserves operator-specific conditions. Shinkansen, limited-express supplements and reservation products also need their own terms; an ordinary accepted touch is not proof that every ticket requirement is included.
JR East had begun introducing magnetic-ticket automatic gates in 1990. Suica started at 424 metropolitan-area stations on November 18, 2001. The new option used contactless IC reading and writing within a railway already using automatic gates. A developer’s account describes separate tasks: rewritable cards, enough communication time at the reader, and combining commuter-pass entitlement with stored fare.
PASMO began on March 18, 2007, alongside metropolitan mutual use with Suica. Ten-card nationwide mutual use followed on March 23, 2013. Separate issuers and operating systems progressively established cooperation; this did not remove every line, area or payment restriction.
Mobile Suica began on January 28, 2006. A supported handset could touch a gate like a card, while its communication function allowed top-ups and supported ticket purchases; its screen displayed balances and usage history. JR East’s chronology later records smartphone service in 2011 and Apple Pay Suica in 2016. The carrier change added ways to manage and inspect the ticket, not simply a card picture on a screen.
PASMO’s timeline dates its Android mobile service to March 18, 2020, and Apple Pay PASMO to October 6 that year. This is PASMO’s platform expansion, distinct from Mobile Suica’s 2006 beginning. Each product still defines supported devices, tickets and operations; carrying one transport service on a phone does not establish compatibility with every other product.
Stored value settles applicable fares. A commuter pass provides purchased travel entitlement for its section and period; topping up alone does not buy that entitlement.
No. Area boundaries, journey rules and stated exceptions also matter.
No. PASMO’s rail guidance does not allow one card to serve multiple simultaneous passengers.
Communication for top-ups and supported ticket purchases, plus a screen for balances and records. PASMO’s 2020 launches are a different brand’s platform expansion.
In this ordinary stored-fare rail example it retains ¥1,000 after entry and has ¥800 after exit settlement. Other payment models and journey conditions need their own treatment.
Ordinary journeys in its defined postpay areas can be settled afterward; other interoperable areas require stored value, with specified JR West postpay conditions.
JR東日本：記念Suicaデザイン（2001／2007／2013）
HO illustrations show generic people, devices and settlement carriers, not operating instructions for specific equipment. Source images retain source copyright. Commemorative cards are browser-render captures of the official images; the handset is an original embedded illustration from PASMO’s PDF.