Contactless smart card AFC trials in East Japan Railway

摘要

East Japan Railway Company (JR East) has installed a magnetic automatic fare collection (AFC) system with stored fare facility in Tokyo Metropolitan area to modernize the transport system. In parallel to these developments, we are investigating a new customer-based ticketing system as proposed at WCRR'94[1], and have been developing the contactless smart card (CSC) as an essential component. The third field trial from April to November 1997 showed that a new batteryless CSC together with a newly designed gate solved most of the problems which had been made clear by the past two trials. The rate of denial that a passenger did not pass the gate with a valid ticket became practically as low as a conventional magnetic gate. Moreover, we successfully introduced a new facility of combining season ticket with stored fare (SF) function. We consider the trial has proved that the AFC system with CSC is technically feasible even in the severe condition of commuter transportation of Tokyo Metropolitan area, and also hope that it should be the first step toward a new customer based ticketing system.