[hinoki]

One thing I really appreciate about Suica is the low latency. You can tap while walking quickly and not have to slow down to get through the ticket gate. Compared with e.g. London, where you have to almost stop because the gates take so long to open, it really makes it easy for a trainload of people to get out of a station.

The name is also a bad pun; Sui-sui is onomatopoeia for smooth movement (like fish swimming), so it’s the card for moving smoothly. Also, suica means watermelon so the card is green.

[bamboozled]

So I purchased an Apple watch and I was really excited to have contactless payments...it's fucking awkward with Mastercard or Visa to be standing there with your arm twisted in a strange way waiting for the payment to be approved. Kind of always seems like it's not going to work and people always have to make some type of joke to make you feel less weird about it.

Suica is also available on the watch and it's much better? Why is that?

[solidsnack9000]

Suica is a stored value card, so you don't have to do an online balance check to validate a transaction.

There is also probably a practical element to it, in that Suica and other IC cards are managed by entities that are closely linked to the various train systems in Japan. The terminals are known to them, the cards were all issued by them; they can probably preload a lot of stuff at all the train stations and keep the data regarding the cards synced directly among the stations. (It's at least feasible that by the time you get to the next station, 90% of the time, the information about your card is already there.) This is in contrast to what would happen if you used Mastercard or Visa to pay for train fares, where all the data would first have to go to northern Virginia...

[makeitdouble]

No network component whatsoever for Suica/Felica (or perhaps after the transaction ?), where I assume Apple Pay validate realtime the transaction.

[manuelabeledo]

Suica defaults to express/transit mode in Apple Pay/Wallet. Using it in your phone is as quick as using a physical card.

Express mode can be configured with plenty of other cards as well, even regular credit cards. That's how it works in London. The difference in speed is because of the gates, not the payment system.

[aikinai]

It’s not just the gates; FeliCa is 100–200ms, much faster than all the other tap payment protocols.

[manuelabeledo]

That has nothing to do with the technology in the IC card.

In terms of real life use, a Suica card in Apple Wallet is indistinguishable from a physical Suica card. Suica itself isn't that much different from any other prepaid transit card, so I don't get the hype. This is some early 2000s technology.

Personally, I see no difference in speed when paying with either an Oyster card (London), an EZCard (Taiwan), a Suica Card, or any Apple Wallet card in transit mode.

[aikinai]

Have other protocols somehow updated and made this chart[0] obsolete?

[0] https://atadistance.net/2020/06/13/transit-gate-evolution-wh...

[uguuchan]

The difference is immense between an Oyster or EZCard and a Suica.

The EZCard and Oyster gates often have lines because of how long it takes for the gates to recognize the EZCard; you'll have people queuing up to get into the station. They as a bottleneck where the flow of traffic is interrupted and slowed down to below walking speed.

This is important as it disrupts flow and public transit during rush hour and is unacceptable. You can see for instance in this video, when people are tapping their cards they are slowing down and waiting for the transaction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TXkKDw3WWU

With Suica/Apple Wallet/NFC-F, there is 0 stoppage or slowing down. You can approach the pace of the gates at walking speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6GrIQT58ak

This makes a BIG difference for how many people can enter the station at once. With Suica/NFC-F you've essentially removed the station gates as a barrier for traffic flow, whereas with Oyster/EZCard (and EZCard being a HUGE offender) you're introducing barriers to traffic.

It may not matter if you're not at a huge station and you have tons of time, but imagine people constantly filing out of Shinjuku station during rush hour and having to queue up on the stairs outside of the gates just to get in - the delay is unacceptable and a human health hazard. When rush hour happens and someone's card is declined, the second or so it takes for them to back out creates a huge jam and crowding. During large events (for instance, people trying to file in/out of stations for performances), this is especially a problem when people don't have enough money on their cards.

In addition to the latency, Suica & these other IC cards also start the process at a further distance, and also work better through wallets/card holders. EZCards are especially bad at that (and won't work through pretty much anything). This reduces the friction required to take the card out, as people can just tap their whole wallet and it'll go through multiple credit cards as well.

The whole goal is to create a smooth process where you can walk through transit gates without stopping or slowing down, and Oyster and EZCards fail at doing that.

Oyster cards and EZCards are fine low traffic transit solutions but the requirement for walking speed not to be interrupted is why they aren't feasible in Japan. EZCards are especially terrible, as they pretty much need to contact the reader to scan. It's painful to see people coming out of the trains in Taiwan and having to line up to leave the station.