year | field

Research on the Introduction of a Common Traffic IC card in East

summary

1. Back ground and the purpose of this research

(1)To bring about a common traffic IC card in East Asia including Japan.
(2)To strengthen economic co-operation it is important to have good cultural exchange (Countries Developing Tourism Industry) based on creating an environment for foreign tourists to travel in Japan easily, development of a common type IC card which can be used in every East Asian city, aiming on the smooth and easy movement of people in these areas started from 2002

The use of traffic IC card in East Asia, especially in South Korea and Hong Kong etc. is remarkable, where 10 million cards are being issued. Further in Japan the Suica Card being issued by East Japan Railway Company 10 million. At the same time to improve the benefits and the convenience of the user, and aiming to increase the user, it is being suggested to break the wall between each individual company and make a card that can be commonly used or shared.
Basing on these conditions, for this research we organized a meeting of Japanese private companies and transportation companies for exchange of ideas to create a common IC card which can be used in every city in East Asia.

2. Research out line
2.1 About the trail experiment

We preformed a trial experiment of the common type IC card that can be used in Sapporo Shiei subway, Singapore underground (MRT) and Hong Kong underground railway (MTR). We conformed the technology with a trial IC card type C whit the same standards as the high speed contact less IC card (FeliCa) being used in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong . In Japan, among the railway companies, the IC cards used conforms to the cyber net standards in processing speed and transmission efficiency, so if this type C, IC card conforms to this standard it will be easy to use commonly. But because there are no international standards of this type using the same Type C traffic IC card cannot be used commonly every country.
For this trail experiment, we made a common type trail IC card using (Memory Partition Technology) technology. This technology divides the memory stored in the card into two parts, enabling it to store system codes and necessary information's required for each company in separate parts, it is a technology which makes it possible to make a common IC card with differing standards.
This double type IC card, Sapporo = Singapore and Sapporo= Hong Kong was tested in operation on the spot by each company -Sapporo Shiei subway, Singapore LTA (land traffic bureau) and Hong Kong Octopus card companies.

2.2 The Result of the Experiment

The 3 companies did a trial experiment from 2003 November to 2004 January. In February a mid term appraisal meeting was held. The result of the trail experiment is according to tables 1 and 2.

As shown in tables 1 and 2 the common IC card with memory partition technology, carries out charges and payment of money (value) without any trouble, processing speed, read out range, read out area, virtual processing speed is no less inferior to the existing cards of the various companies, and has been proven to be good enough to put into use. Further, as for the virtual processing speed there are some numerical values between the existing card and the trial card. In the Ez-link and Octopus card too the processing speed is different, but it is a level that can be disregarded.

issue

Reports No.52/2005 Jul.

stocks

detail