Jomo Electric Railway in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, will begin accepting transit IC cards on January 15.
At all stations along the line, nationally interoperable transit IC cards such as “Suica” and “PASMO,” as well as the regional cooperative IC card “nolbé,” will be usable with a common system. At staffed stations, entry/exit IC readers will be installed at the ticket gates, while at unstaffed stations and at staffed stations during unstaffed hours, on-board IC readers will be installed near the third set of doors from the front of the first car. Passengers will settle fares by touching their pre-charged cards when boarding and alighting. When transferring to Tobu Railway at Akagi Station, passengers must touch their cards in sequence on each company’s IC reader located on the platform. Adding value to IC cards and selling nolbé cards and issuing commuter passes will be handled at the ticket counters of Chuo-Maebashi Station, Ogo Station, Akagi Station, and Nishi-Kiryu Station.
nolbé is a regional cooperative IC card that can be used in the Suica area and on railways and buses across Japan that have mutual-use agreements with Suica. In Gunma Prefecture, bus services began accepting nolbé in March 2022. With its introduction on Jomo Electric Railway, a single nolbé card will allow seamless transfers between Jomo Electric Railway and railway and bus routes in the Suica and PASMO areas. The card is available as an unregistered (anonymous) card that anyone can purchase, and as a registered card for adults, children, and people with disabilities. Commuter passes are issued as 1-month, 3-month, or 6-month passes on registered nolbé cards.
Through the GunMaaS service in Gunma Prefecture, the “Jomo Electric Railway Southern Foot of Mount Akagi 1-Day Free Pass” will be usable simply by touching a pre-linked IC card, instead of showing a screen on a smartphone. Users will also be able to purchase a “GunMaaS Noritoku Pass,” which combines points equivalent to the fare with coupons that can be used at local shops and recreational facilities, and then ride using GunMaaS points. A newly established GunMaaS commuter pass will be a 6-month adult commuter pass valid on Jomo Electric Railway lines; after member registration and purchase by credit card, passengers will ride for six months from the start date of use by touching their linked IC card to the readers.
This project is being implemented by the Jomo Line Revitalization Council, which is composed of Gunma Prefecture, the city of Maebashi, and other local governments, with subsidies from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism under the FY2025 “Japanese MaaS Promotion and Support Project.”
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This article was generated using automatic translation by GPT-4 API. The translation may not be accurate.
