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All Tokyo Metro Lines to Allow Tap Payments

TOKYO - From spring 2026, passengers will be able to ride the entire Tokyo Metro network using contactless payments via credit cards or smartphones, without the need for tickets or transit IC cards.

Tokyo Metro announced on July 24th that it will introduce a new service enabling passengers to touch a credit or debit card—equipped with contactless payment functionality—or a compatible smartphone at ticket gates to enter and exit stations. The initiative aims to improve convenience for users, particularly international travelers who may not possess Japanese transit IC cards.

The new system will cover all Tokyo Metro lines. However, the company stated that plans for transfers to lines operated by other railway companies remain undecided.

Similar contactless payment systems have already been introduced by Tokyu Corporation and Keio Corporation last year. JR Kyushu is also conducting pilot tests in selected areas.

Source: TBS

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A large new typhoon formed near the Ogasawara Islands on August 12 and could approach Honshu around the end of the Obon holiday period, while the remnants of Typhoon No. 15 continue to bring unstable weather and a risk of heavy rain across a wide area of Japan.

Hiroko Saito was 19 years old when she left Japan for North Korea in June 1961 with her Korean husband and their one-year-old daughter, persuaded by assurances that they were heading to a "paradise on earth" and that she could return to Japan after three years. Instead, she would spend four decades in North Korea, enduring chronic hunger, the deaths of her husband and children and a desperate struggle to survive before finally escaping and returning home in 2001.

Transport disruption caused by Typhoon No. 15 was easing across eastern Japan on the morning of August 12, with most major railway and airline services returning to normal after dozens of flight cancellations and widespread rail disruption during the storm's landfall in Ibaraki Prefecture the previous evening.

Japan's H3 Rocket No. 9 successfully placed the Michibiki No. 7 navigation satellite into its planned orbit after lifting off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture at 4:23 a.m. on August 11, marking the country's second consecutive successful H3 launch.

The Tokaido Shinkansen operated its first overnight service ahead of the Obon holiday period, offering travelers a 15,000 yen trip from the Tokyo area to Kyoto and Shin-Osaka while allowing them to save on hotel costs and arrive earlier than the first regular morning trains.

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Typhoon No. 15 continued moving west across central Japan on August 12, but heavy rain, strong winds and thunderstorms remained a threat far from the storm's center, with intense rainfall reported in parts of Tokyo and damage including fallen and broken trees in Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures.

Typhoon No. 15 approached the Kinki region on the morning of August 12 before weakening into a tropical depression over the Sea of Japan, but authorities are warning that sudden thunderstorms and heavy rain remain possible across the region.

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A fireworks festival that had been promoted as a simultaneous display of more than 10,000 fireworks across three cities on Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture was abruptly canceled on August 9, with organizers having failed to submit applications for permits required to hold the event.

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