TOICA

nihongo|TOICA|トイカ|Toika is a rechargeable contactless smart card ticketing system for JR Central railway network introduced in Chūkyō Area (Greater Nagoya), Japan from November 25, 2006.

The name is the acronym of "Tōkai IC Card". [http://www.japanrail.com/pdf/news/JR_Bulletin057_Central.pdf JR Bulletin 057] . JR Central. Accessed December 5, 2007.] Just like JR East's Suica or JR West's ICOCA, the card uses RFID technology developed by Sony corporation known as FeliCa.

As of December 2007, 350,000 cards are issued. In Nagoya area, the 50% of the riders, or the 70% of the commuter pass holders, used the card. [Japanese Wikipedia article of TOICA, retrieved on April 3, 2008.]

Usable Area

TOICA is currently accepted on JR Central lines in the following area.
*Tōkaidō Main Line, between Kannami and Sekigahara
*Chūō Main Line, between Nagoya and Nakatsugawa
*Kansai Main Line, between Nagoya and Yokkaichi
*Taketoyo Line, the whole line, between Ōbu and Taketoyo

Integrated services

TOICA is also usable in Suica accepting area (Greater Tokyo Area, Sendai, and Niigata) and ICOCA accepting area (Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto and Okayama-Hiroshima). Suica (including Mobile Suica) and ICOCA are usable in TOICA accepting area as well. However, a card has to be used within a single area; for instance, it is not possible to use a card for the trip between Tokyo and Nagoya. The integrated service started from March 2008.

Future of TOICA

The smart card that will be introduced within 2011 on Nagoya Railroad (Meitetsu) and Nagoya Municipal Subway, replacing the current nihongo|Tranpass|トランパス|Toranpasu system, may have an integrated service. The service with PiTaPa for Kintetsu and other private railway networks in Kansai region is also considered.

On the other hand, there is no known plan to have integrated services with already existing smart card systems in Shizuoka Prefecture, namely LuLuCa (Shizuoka Railway) or NicePass (Enshu Railway). It also does not have integration plans with other cards, such as PASMO, SUGOCA, or Kitaca.

External links

* [http://toica.jr-central.co.jp/ Official website by JR Central]

References