JR East Brings Suica Walk-Through Gates to 40 Tokyo Stations

Trial first, full rollout in 2028

A trial runs from 10 April 2027 to 29 February 2028 at five stations in the wider Shinagawa area (Hamamatsucho, Tamachi, Takanawa Gateway, Shinagawa, Oimachi) and nine major terminals: Tokyo, Ueno, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Akabane, Kita-Senju, Nakano and Osaki. About 400 commuter-pass holders on those sections will be recruited as monitors and lent an AQUOS R10 phone with a trial app developed with Sharp. Both entry and exit must be made by walk-through within the pass section.

The full rollout in spring 2028 covers all Yamanote Line stations, the Narita Airport stations, the Tokyo Monorail Haneda Airport stations and Monorail Hamamatsucho, 40 stations in total. Each gate will have one entry and one exit lane.

Touch-and-go still works alongside walk-through, as do fare adjustments and stored-value (charge) payments. A rider entering at a walk-through station can still tap out at a station without one, although during the 2027 trial use is limited to travel between walk-through gates.

Partners and next steps

Sony is developing and manufacturing readers/writers that support both NFC and UWB, which can measure distance and position to within a few centimetres. FeliCa Networks is developing the security software and an applet for the phone's secure element, and JR East Mechatronics is building and installing the gates.

From 2028, JR East plans to extend the gates to conventional and Shinkansen stations across the Tokyo area and regional areas, aiming for every station that currently has ticket gates by the end of fiscal 2031. In the mid-2030s it plans a GPS-based "smartphone gate" (working name) to remove the distinction between inside and outside the station network.