[SapporoChris]

Actually, ticketless services are being rolled out. Example: https://www.jreast.co.jp/en/multi/ticket/eticket.html

[darekkay]

This sounds great, especially as it's linked to the IC card. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything similar for JR West or JR Kyushu, which I will be using in the next few weeks. Hopefully they will implement the same system in the future.