Commuters get free access after glitches hit ticket gates at over 400 train stations

Automated ticket gates at more than 400 railway and subway stations in the Tokyo area failed to work Friday morning, forcing operators to give commuters free access at major stations, the operators said. It was the first major glitch involving more than one rail system since the Pasmo rechargeable IC fare cards debuted and became interchangeable with the Suica card of East Japan Railway Co in March.

Since service at the gates was restored by severing them from the computer servers for Suica and Pasmo, the glitch is seen as stemming from a networking problem. Though the gates failed to operate after the power was turned on at the start of the day's service, no train services were disrupted. All gates were restored on the Tokyo Metro subway at around 9:20 a.m. and JR East stations at around 10 a.m. JR East said the trouble occurred at about 150 JR stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area, including Omiya in Saitama Prefecture, Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture and Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture.

About 100 stations in the subway system run by the Tokyo metropolitan government and 48 stations of Tokyo Metro Co were affected, as well as some of the stations operated by Tokyu Corp, Seibu Railway Co, Tobu Railway Co, Keisei Electric Railway Co and Tokyo Monorail Co., they said.