Japan has an interesting effort to integrate transit farecards across multiple metropolitan areas—so, a level up from the common case of having one card for all transit providers in a single metro area (which is already a hugely helpful step).
Their Nationwide Mutual Usage Service “allows riders of trains, buses, and other public transport to seamlessly use the same card in all major Japanese cities, across hundreds of public, privately owned, and third-sector systems.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_Mutual_Usage_Service)
As part of it, there are 10 farecards from around the country that are interoperable with each other. I almost cited it in this post, but it does seem to have a few shortcomings (or rather, opportunities for further improvement!):
1. "IC cards part of the Nationwide Mutual Usage Service typically cannot be used for continuous travel between two areas served by different IC cards, but rather within each area or city."
2. The unified logo doesn't appear to be in common use, at least judging from photos on Wikipedia. Rather, the letters "IC" will be shown in some form, but that form varies widely in appearance.
3. Each of the farecards still focuses on its own branding, with "IC" being quite secondary—whereas E-ZPass serves as *the* focal brand for its services.
Love this! Public transit fare cards immediately come to mind, although it may be moot with tap credit cards.
Good point!
Japan has an interesting effort to integrate transit farecards across multiple metropolitan areas—so, a level up from the common case of having one card for all transit providers in a single metro area (which is already a hugely helpful step).
Their Nationwide Mutual Usage Service “allows riders of trains, buses, and other public transport to seamlessly use the same card in all major Japanese cities, across hundreds of public, privately owned, and third-sector systems.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_Mutual_Usage_Service)
As part of it, there are 10 farecards from around the country that are interoperable with each other. I almost cited it in this post, but it does seem to have a few shortcomings (or rather, opportunities for further improvement!):
1. "IC cards part of the Nationwide Mutual Usage Service typically cannot be used for continuous travel between two areas served by different IC cards, but rather within each area or city."
2. The unified logo doesn't appear to be in common use, at least judging from photos on Wikipedia. Rather, the letters "IC" will be shown in some form, but that form varies widely in appearance.
3. Each of the farecards still focuses on its own branding, with "IC" being quite secondary—whereas E-ZPass serves as *the* focal brand for its services.
More info here: https://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr62/pdf/6-15_web.pdf