fares for monthly commuter smart cards

The management of the small rapid transit system in our town of 2.5 milion people are considering introducing a smart card but don't believe that these cards can be used as commuter cards. Several people, like me, who have used these cards in other towns have volunteered to give them some info.

MY QUESTION: I found a lot of documentation about many European and North American systems but can't find the monthly price of Japanese commuter cards, like Suica, Pasmo, Icoca.
I only need basic info, perhaps the address of an internet site. As an example of the info I need, a Smart card commuter pass in Paris that is good for all the subway lines and all the 6 zones cost, for an adult, 110 Euros per month (it is called Navigo and, like many similar cards, only has so much money at any time and is loaded automatically when needed )
Thank you in advance to anyone that can help me.

Commuter cards in Japan are valid on a specified route rather than for zones. The route can cover multiple railway companies.

The cost seems to be calculated roughly as 30 times the one way fare, i.e. it pays off if you make the round trip on at least around 15 days each month. But the cost calculation seems to vary depending on route and company. I am not sure how exactly it is calculated.

Thanks Uji!
this already gives me a very good information as our Transit company "experts" insisted that in Japan and other places all Smart Cards charge so many yens/ cents/etc.per kms, every trip ,every day, no discounts!.
since I wrote my query I found in www.urbanrail.net a theorical price for a monthly commuter pass. As you said it depends on the route,
Thanks again so much.
You really are a treasure for all of us and your patience is admirable.

This is true when it comes to normal operation of a IC card it stores money. Usually fares are based on distance traveled and discounts are usually not given.

Commuter passes can be purchased, but the price varies as mentioned depending on route, distance and if it spans one or more railway companies.

Also remember in many places in the world, even in Japan there could be a distinct difference between a commuter pass and a IC card (like Suica/Icoca/Pasmo).
It's possible to have a commuter pass and not have a IC card, but its also possible to have a commuter pass on a IC card if that option is available.

Also depends on the technology of the train card transit company plans to adopt. There are simple IC cards that simply store value. You put money on and money is deducted each time you use it. I know this system is used by by some North American transit systems that use contactless cards.

Then there more complex ones based on Sony's Felica system (which is the base technology for most of the train cards and other money cards in Japan and Asia). The more complex the card the more information it holds and more things you can do with it.

So it also depends on what type of card your transit system has or plans to adopt. Remember the better the system usually it costs more, and if something costs more, you get fare hikes, and usually the public ridership doesn't like fare hikes.

Thank you John for your detailed answer. Your information is especially interesting as it mentions several things that one doesn't read about in theorical discussions of these cards.
I did find a lot of info on Smart Cards similar to Suica etc. but I really needed the input of an unbiased "third party" to try to convince the research staff of our Transit system. Most of them have never taken rapid transit and have no clues ( I live in a North America town where cars are kings)
I am very grateful for your help.
Thanks again!

I don't know where in North America you live, but I am in the USA and have been on many public transit systems in the US. Many transit systems in the US have commuter passes, however they are not incorporated into their smart cards or they don't have smart cards to begin with. For example San fransico's bart system doesn't even offer a commuter pass and you pay as you go, even with their new smart card system. In Washington, DC their SmarTrip card only stores fares and deducts fares if you want a commuter pass you have to purchase a seperate paper magnetic card. New York City, the largest subway system in North America, actually the largest single subway system in the world (with the most number of stations operated by one agency) doesn't even use Smart cards, and the estimated cost of implimenting a system is ranging in the 300 million USD range. So its hard to convince a transit system to do something when even the largest transit system in the western hemesphere doesn't do it.

Now Chicago does have two smart cards, one is a regular store and pay, another one is a more complex card that has to be tied to a credit card (which is a kicker for some people thus making it less accessable to the public depending on your circumstances), which does allow for a 30 day pass. Otherwise if you want a commuter pass the regular paper magnetic ticket works. And this is the norm, in many transit systems in the US, and even in many places in Japan, that regular paper or magnetic tickets are used as commuter passes. My commuter pass in Japan was a magnetic one since it ran on non JR lines before Pasmo came out. Even in the large Kansai area of Japan, because Icoca and PiTaPa isn't accepted everywhere you still have regular magnetic commuter cards.

If I were in charge of a public transit system, there are many things I would have to worry about, the main thing is "how much is this going to cost", thats what everyone cares about, I would have to look at how large my transit system is, what the daily ridership is, and factor in, the technology and costs of implementing of such a system.

Plantagenesta,

As you have probably realized, implementing the system is expensive initially for the transit system operator, but I think one of the advantages of smart systems is that they have lower running costs. Widespread use of IC smart cards reduces the need for ticket machines and the running costs (refilling, cash handling etc) they entail. Ticket gates for handling conventional magnetic tickets are also very delicate machines, which not infrequently get jammed. Non-contact system eliminate these problems and greatly reduce maintenance costs.

thank you John and Dave.
we do have commuter passes (laminated paper with a magnetic trip) in our transit system-- somewhere in Canada-- but they want to do away with these and charge by the trip and by the distance.
I have used transit systems in Europe, where my family come from, and not only big towns like London and Paris (they both have a bewildering number of tickets and passes) but even small places use Smartcards . Bordeaux, France, has under 1 million people (including the farthest suburbs) and not only do they use a smartcard but they will try payment by cell phone next year. Milan ,Lyons are other places with smartcards..

how about this New York 30-Day Unlimited Ride MetroCard?
Cost: $76, reduced fare $38
Good for unlimited subway and local bus rides until midnight, 30 days from day of first use. This card is insured against loss when purchased at a vending machine with a credit or debit/ATM card.

thanks again guys.

As I mentioned the New York City subway doesn't use smart cards. The unlimited pass is a magnetic fare card.

I confused even myself. Is the discussion about Smart Cards or Commuter Passes that are on Smart Cards? As I mentioned it depends on the technology being adopted.

(the post was about smart cards used as commuter passes)
John, rereading your long post I think you made the perfect argument I was looking for!!
We already have commuter passes (ticket w/ magnetic back) that work perfectly. Our transit system isn't used by too many people--compared to the percentage of users in other Canadian towns, never mind Europe and Japan- if only because we have only 2 rapid transit lines that overlap for 1/2 of their route and only serve 1/4 of the city. A 3rd line is being built but, even with the other 2, this will still leave over 1/2 of the city ( big chunks of downtown, and all the wealthier west side) without rapid transit. There aren't enough $$$ for the long east to west line we badly need (all our lines are automated guided transit, not heavy duty subways). So why waste several hundred millions on smart cards, including retrofitting fare boxes on buses, boxes that were retroffited only a few years back for magnetic stripes tickets, and installing turnstiles (we don't have any now) in the stations, and at the same time upsetting people by increasing the fares drastically thus pushing many of them back to using cars??
I think I got what I needed now. Thanks a million!

It is obvious that you refer to Vancouver ;) I hope you do not mind me mentioning it.

I found the new fare boxes heavily outdated even at the time when they were introduced a few years ago, especially the ones on the buses. They malfunction frequently, the tickets have to be inserted in a way opposite to how most humans would want to insert it and - most of all - they are slow (it takes several seconds for the process for each passenger), leading to very slow boarding process, which slows down the buses and makes public transportation unattractive. It is amazing how much time is lost by the boarding process on Vancouver's buses (just like the deboarding process on buses in Japan).

Smart cards could speed up the boarding process. Combined with bus lanes and intelligent traffic lights, this could give buses a boost. Even better would be self control, at least on the B-Line buses, so that people can board and de-board through all doors, like on the skytrain and in most European cities. Of course, the problem would be cheating passengers, which would have to be offset by random checks.

I think the main problem of public transportation in Vancouver is the low density of population, making it very difficult for rapid transit (or effective public transportatuion in general) to pay off.

Uji you really know your stuff! yes I live in Vancouver.
Your take on what's wrong
with our transit ssytem is spot on!.
Unfortunately many people born and raised in Vancouver (or at least B.C.) believe that:
1- Vancouver is the best place to live in the whole world
2-Skytrain is the most advanced transit system in the world.
this doesn't help those of us (that have actually lived elsewhere) to suggest some badly needed improvements.
Uji you were the first to answer me and your latest posting should be the last word on the subject .
my most sincere thanks to Uji, John and Dave

Hello Plantagenesta,

I hope it's not too late to get in contact with you as I'm from Vancouver, have lived in Japan for a year, and will be going back in less than a month. I got very interested when it became very obvoious to me that this thread was about my hometown!

If you could just explain what is going on, or what is in the works of being implemented, I'd love to know! I have a few things I'd like to say about our system, but it boils down to the fact that it might only be a good idea to implement IC technology if it's not too expensive. I can also tell you about my commuter pass if you want.

Anyway, please let me know what's going on, if it's not confidential!

the implementation of a smartcard system has been very quietly talked about for well over a year. nothing formal, only a couple of lines buried in several free papers. right fro mthe start it was mentionned that Smartcard = fares charged according to the length of a trip "as in Japan" (why not London, Paris etc. where one get a discount?)
we learned a few months ago thatall the fares were going up in January 2008. then last week in the Georgia Straight and this week in the Courrier, Ken Hardie from Translink is quoted as saying: " Translink is develoing a smartcard system that will eliminate zones...you will pay according to the length of your trip".
I have talked many times in t to some of the Translink staff involved in planning new lines and also to a couple of boards members and was amazed when most of them let slip that they had never actually used various types of transit systems. we all know too that both The Provincial and Federal governements do not give Translink the $$ that Toronto transit gets. The Canada-Rav line is also likely to be in the red.. so the users will be expected to pay dearly. We need to "stay on guard"
I wouldn't mind hearing from your experiences in Japan..Transit wise and otherwise..

I mentioned before the basic function of a smart card is to hold money and have money deducted when it is used, that is the basic function I think in a transit smart card. Ie. fares charged based on distance such as Washington, DC, San Francisco, Chicago EL, many many commuter transit sytems also charge based on distanced travel but do not use a smart card system (they either use paper tickets, or magnetic fare cards).

So what I'm saying is if Vancouver wanted to move over to a pay depending on distance traveled, it certainly wouldn't be alone in that aspect.

And many many systems use this. Now when it comes to discounts those are add-ons and requires a bit of more sophistication on the card part. Discounts etc are other items that are additions to the basic structure of the transit system fares.

Well, here's what I was going to say about Smart IC technology in Vancouver.

I couldn't definitely tell whether you were for or against IC cards in Vancouver, but as for them being used as commuter passes, you've got to be kidding me. The big reason why they are so necessary here is that everybody buys a pass for a different route, and thus the ticket gates need to be able to check each one in less than a second. With just 3 zones in Vancouver, I think the old "flash your card at the driver" works just fine. He/She'd have to be really asleep to not immediately be able to tell whether a pass is valid or not.

However, you just said that there were plans to change the system to "pay per distance travelled", which I also think is going to really complicate things. I tend to transfer to different buses to get from A to B in Vancouver, and I imagine, given that bus routes in V are essentially straight shots on a single road, other people have got to transfer buses too. Does that mean that we'd all have to pay each bus that we take, transfer per transfer? Oh god, that'd be awful! IC Smart card technology would make things a lot better, but I have no idea how much money Vancouver's got for upgrading our transportation system, even if the Olympics are coming around in 3 years. Either way, it seems like the way transportation has been constructed in Vancouver would only make sense if we stuck with the zone system.

As for using stored money on an IC card, that'd be nice! I know I'm gonna go back home, see those tickets go in a bus machine, the machine will make its customary funny sounds for a good and FULL 2-3 seconds, and then laugh because even normal tickets here in Japan take less than one second to be processed at automated ticket gates. The fareboxes on Vancouver buses are quite slow, yes, but then again, I've been on buses here in Japan (most places except where I'm living, Tokyo) and most card machines on buses here actually run no faster than the Vancouver ones, in my experience. And if Vancouver isn't going to implement IC tech for commuter passes, then we probably shouldn't bother implementing it for normal prepaid cards either, unless we have the money. Might as well spend tons of money to do one amazing upgrade rather than a bunch of little tiny ones that collectively cost way more and end up at the same final product.

I really would love to see IC technology on Vancouver buses and trains. I think that would increase ridership because people would begin to see the system as very easy to use. However, how much does it cost? Like I said above, if we're even remotely in range of doing it, I think we should do it, rather than do a bunch of tiny improvements. Plus, it would look real good to the millions of tourists and the IOC come Olympic time.

Now, finally, as for my commuter pass here, I have 2 but I'll tell you about one of them. The normal ride costs 150 yen, a one month pass cost around 4500 yen, a 3 month one cost (I don't know, I never bought one), and a 6 month one, which I bought, cost 22680 yen. So the one month pass worked out to 30 trips, or 15 round trips in the one month. The 6 month pass works out to 151 trips, or 75 round trips in 6 months, or 25 trips, ~12 round trips per month. The discount appears to have been around 10-15% for the 6 month pass over the 1 month pass. That's not such a bad reward for paying up front. I imagine other train companies in Japan offer around the same discounts for passes of these lengths, but I don't know. It certainly makes sense to award Vancouverites for the same sort of commitment...and I have found bulk discounts to be tiny, if they even exist, in Japan (yes, in some cases, a discount for purchasing more of something does not exist). So the discount should be even more in Vancouver! Hah, like that'll happen! But who knows.

Sorry for the long post but I'm rather interested in the topic!

thanks for your great post.
I am personnally in favour of IC cards for everything. However I do not accept Translink reasoning that
we need them because:
1- our fare system is very complicated (quite a few places have many more zones and, zones or not, many places have 20 or more different fares)
2-other places charge fares by the actual distance of each trip (this obviously has got to mean no discount commuter passes. I could be wrong but there is never a mention of com. passes, only that we will pay by the trip)
I know both by experience i.e by using transit in many towns in quite a few countries, and also by looking at a lot of official transit internet sites that a good number of towns give discounts, either on tickets bought in bulk or on weekly/monthly/ yearly passes, regardless of the technology used. YES I DO KNOW that many towns do not give discounts, don' t have monthly passes etc. so what?? as users we need to fight for what is good and practical for us, otherwise we might as well all use cars or motor bikes etc.
Taxpayers In many towns in the world are willing to pay more taxes in order to get a good transit system that doesn't cost too much for the user and rewards them with
discounts. In exchange the town drastically reduces the use of cars downtown (this cut down on pollution and reduce the for more expressways) and turns popular downtown shopping areas into pedestrian streets, also revitalize their downtown to ensure that middle and upper income families will live downtown and keep it thriving.

In a recent movie taking place in Paris a young immigrant woman rushes from her home in the suburbs, taking a bus, then a train then the subway to go to her employer home (a huge apartment in the posh 16th district). What wasn't shown is that the rich lady is likely to take the subway to go to work too. I worked in France for a couple of years and quite a few of my wealthiest clients didn't have a car in Paris. they only had one in their old family estate in the country (and several full time household staff in both their homes).
As you know V transit system isn't the greatest for a town that size. The fare boxes you mention come from New York. They were obsolete for N.Y. transit. Our transit Co. bought them for 25 million!!. I am positive that Translink research staff haven't the foggiest notion about the daily use of transit and how it is done in various places. This is why we need to be ready to educate them.

Jon
from Fukuoka transit internet site:
Commuter Pass:
Passes are available for periods of one month, three months, and six months. They allow free boarding within the designated area at a great discount. Using a pass results in substantial savings for those who travel by subway daily.
Chika Pass:
Sold for 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months.
Unlimited travel on all subway lines. A very convenient way to ride!

Okay, have things changed in the past year? Because as I recall, Vancouver is divided into just 3 zones! The 1/2/3 zone commuter passes we have right now seem to work quite well.

If you think about it, our zone based system is still charging sort of by distance traveled, just we`re not being very precise about it! But I think I like it for what we have right now. We`re not that big a city and we don`t need to charge people a different fare from a given skytrain station to each and every single other skytrain station. And as for charging by exact distance via the buses in Vancouver, that just wouldn`t be fair because, like I said, buses in Vancouver don`t go around and hit many destinations, they are nearly all straight shots and so passengers constantly have to transfer.

Either way, the zone system seems to be good right now. IC cards would be great, and it`d just be a matter of producing them and updating fareboxes and getting skytrain station ticket gates and then imputting the appropriate technology into them. Like I said, it`s a great idea and I`d love to see it, especially in time for the Olympics, but if it costs too much money...well I dunno.

And of course I agree with you when it comes to discounts. I find that Vancouver`s faresavers tend to give better discounts than multiple trip coupons here in Japan, and so the bulk discounting should certainly continue no matter what happens to the base fare prices!