Member-only story
Japan Rail Companies Limit Train Passes Due to Chip Shortage
JR East and the PASMO Corporation have started limiting the sale of new transit cards. What does this mean for your trip to Japan?
JR East and the PASMO Corporation have started limiting the sale of new transit cards. What does this mean for your trip to Japan?
A transportation rail pass is indispensable for getting around major cities in Japan. However, two of the country’s most-used passes are now harder to get due to an IC chip shortage. What does this mean for tourists?
Chip shortage == no unregistered cards
Japan Railways East (JR East), which produces the Suica rail card, and the PASMO Corporation, which produces the PASMO rail card, say they will limit the sale of both cards due to a global shortage in integrated circuit (IC) chips. (Both cards use the Felica IC chip, a standard developed by Sony.)
The change impacts only what JR East and PASMO call “nameless cards”. These are cards you can buy at automated vending machines at the airport and rail stations that spit out a card with no identifying information. Residents of Japan can still…
