JR East Begins Facial Recognition Gate Trial at Niigata and Nagaoka Shinkansen Stations

Two stations test a journey without tapping a card

East Japan Railway (JR East) began testing facial recognition ticket gates at Niigata and Nagaoka stations on November 6, 2025, allowing registered Joetsu Shinkansen commuters to pass through without presenting a paper ticket or tapping an IC card. The public trial runs until March 31, 2026, with one experimental lane at each station alongside the usual gates.

About 500 participants are expected in the initial group. They must be junior high school age or older and hold a Suica FREX or Suica FREX Pal Shinkansen commuter pass covering the section between Niigata and Nagaoka. Registration, including submission of a facial photograph, took place from October 6 to 17.

JR East wants to find out whether passengers can keep walking while the equipment checks their identity. The intended experience is a passage as natural as an ordinary stroll, especially for someone carrying luggage or pushing a stroller who would otherwise need to free a hand to find a ticket or phone.

Niigata and Nagaoka will test different equipment arrangements. NEC recognition devices are attached to existing gates at Niigata, while Nagaoka uses a new gate developed with JR East Mechatronics and Panasonic Connect. Testing both at working stations gives JR East a chance to compare installation choices as well as passenger experience.

The immediate task is to measure how reliably the gates work during busy periods and quieter times. JR East will examine walking speed, camera placement, recognition accuracy and passenger feedback before deciding its next steps. Standard gates remain available throughout the trial.

How a face becomes a ticket check

A camera captures a passenger's face as they approach the experimental gate. Software compares that image with a template created from the photograph submitted during advance registration. A template is the reference the system uses to decide whether the approaching person matches a registered passenger.

The registered photograph is linked to the participant's commuter pass through a secure channel. When the comparison reaches a preset level of confidence, the gate's flaps open and its screen indicates that the fare has been processed. If the system does not recognize the passenger, the gate stays closed, and the person can use a normal ticket or IC card lane.

JR East says the recognition software is designed to cope with everyday changes, including glasses and masks. It is also intended to make its decision at normal walking speed, without requiring a passenger to stop in front of the camera.

The equipment includes liveness checks, which are designed to distinguish a real person from a printed photograph or an image displayed on a screen. These checks address the risk of someone trying to gain entry by presenting another passenger's picture rather than their own face.

Passengers join voluntarily. After registering their photograph and pass, monitors use the gate during the test period and answer questionnaires about their experience. JR East and its technology partners say the biometric data is encrypted, kept for limited periods and used only to authenticate access at the gate. Encryption protects stored information by making it unreadable without the appropriate means to unlock it.

Who can join, and when

The first phase is restricted to commuters with the specified Suica FREX or Suica FREX Pal passes for the Niigata to Nagaoka section. Requiring an existing pass gives the trial a defined group of passengers whose travel entitlement can be connected to their registered face.

JR East expects roughly 500 monitors and will offer a 3,000 yen gift certificate for the CoCoLo station shopping centers as thanks for participating. Questionnaires will collect their views on using the gates, alongside the technical measurements gathered during operation.

The main dates and planned stages are:

• October 6 to 17, 2025: advance registration and facial photograph submission for the initial monitor group.
• November 6, 2025: the public trial begins at Niigata and Nagaoka stations.
• March 31, 2026: the scheduled end of the current trial.
• After the initial phase: JR East plans to extend participation to additional groups, including Otona no Kyujitsu Club members and Shinkansen electronic ticket users.
• By spring 2027: JR East plans a separate test of technologies other than facial recognition on conventional railway lines.

The schedule provides about five months of testing at stations that remain in normal use. Rush hours, passengers carrying luggage and occasional service disruptions that change the flow of travelers will all form part of the operating environment.

Why JR East is testing two gate designs

NEC supplies the cameras and recognition units at Niigata Station, where they are attached to JR East's existing ticket gates. This arrangement lets the railway examine how facial recognition can fit into a station layout already built around conventional equipment.

JR East Mechatronics and Panasonic Connect installed a new gate model at Nagaoka Station. Its cameras and displays are integrated into the gate itself, giving JR East a second way to assess how the technology works when the equipment is designed together.

The comparison involves more than whether each system recognizes a face. Reusing a gate could make use of equipment already in place, while a new model might allow smoother integration of the camera, screen and passenger route. The trial will help JR East compare accuracy, ease of installation and how clearly each design communicates with travelers.

Passenger feedback will cover the visibility of displays, the prompts that guide someone through the lane and the sound cues used by the equipment. A gate must be understandable as well as technically capable, particularly when a traveler is approaching it while keeping pace with people behind them.

Walking speed, camera angles and rejected passengers

JR East's engineering checklist includes the distance between a passenger's face and the camera, the camera's height and tilt, and the time the software takes to return a decision. Staff will also assess where the lane should sit within the station and how signs direct people toward it.

Lighting and crowd conditions can affect recognition based on camera images. Engineers will examine different conditions, including reflections from luggage. Real station use may also reveal problems such as glare from winter sunlight at certain hours or a camera position that makes the equipment harder to use for shorter passengers.

A central measurement is how often a valid passenger is rejected. A false rejection occurs when someone entitled to travel is not recognized by the gate. That passenger may need to try again or move to another lane, slowing the queue and making the journey more frustrating.

Throughput, meaning the number of people who can pass through a gate over a given period, matters alongside recognition accuracy. A system that eventually identifies people correctly can still cause congestion if it takes too long to reach its decision.

JR East will use the trial to help set the minimum match score required to open the gate. A higher score demands a closer match between the approaching face and the registered template. The practical task is to balance confidence in the identity check with speed and dependable passage for eligible users.

The railway will also consider how many seconds passengers should expect a typical passage to take. Together, these settings will help determine whether facial recognition feels smoother than tapping a card, rather than simply replacing one action with a different delay.

What Panasonic says about everyday use

Panasonic Connect, which supplies the system at Nagaoka, says its recognition engine and gate design are intended to work under everyday conditions and deter impersonation. The company described the changes in appearance that the technology is designed to handle:

The technology is robust against changes in facial orientation, aging, glasses, and masks, and includes anti spoofing features.

Facial orientation means the direction in which someone is looking. For a station gate, the camera must work with people approaching naturally, rather than depending on every passenger holding their head at precisely the same angle.

The trial will test this design in the setting where passengers would actually use it. Camera positioning, lighting, crowds and the pace of walking all affect the experience. Feedback from ordinary commuters should help JR East identify practical difficulties that testing in a laboratory may miss.

Privacy and fairness are part of the test

Facial recognition involves sensitive information because the registered image is used to identify a person. Privacy advocates have raised concerns about data breaches, wider surveillance and error rates that may affect some groups more than others.

Past studies have found that some facial recognition algorithms misidentify women and people with darker skin at higher rates. JR East says it will also study whether the system introduces bias during actual station use. The monitor program is intended to help reveal problems that emerge when ordinary commuters encounter the equipment.

JR East stresses that participation is voluntary and that the trial's purpose is authentication at the gate, rather than tracking people throughout the station. The company says registered facial data will be encrypted and stored only for the time and purpose needed to let an enrolled passenger pass through.

Japan's data protection rules require clarity about why personal data is collected and informed consent. Companies must secure that data, limit how long it is retained and allow people to withdraw consent. For passengers, those requirements concern both the decision to register and what happens to their information when they stop using the service.

Liveness detection addresses attempted impersonation using a photograph or video on a screen. Data protection addresses how the passenger's information is collected, stored and used. JR East's trial brings both tasks into the operation of the same gate.

Where this fits into Suica Renaissance

JR East places the trial within its Suica Renaissance plan, a long term effort to develop the familiar Suica platform into a broader access service. The company is exploring ways for passengers to enter without touching a card or phone to a reader.

Large stations are a particular concern because queues can form quickly. Facial recognition is one candidate for access without touching a device, and JR East is testing it with limits on who can participate and how their information is handled.

The company's broader goal is a gate that people can walk through dependably enough for wide deployment within the next decade. The Niigata and Nagaoka trial examines one possible route toward that goal, while the planned conventional line test will examine technologies other than facial recognition.

JR East has not announced a date for wider deployment or decided which additional stations would receive the gates. After the initial phase, it plans to broaden the eligible passenger groups and evaluate accuracy, speed and user feedback before considering further expansion.

Other Japanese railways are adding access choices

Osaka Metro introduced facial recognition gates at nearly all of its stations in March 2025, making the option part of daily commuting. JR East's experiment takes place against that wider expansion of payment and entry choices across Japanese railways.

Keisei Electric Railway has added a facial recognition option for issuing Skyliner express tickets. The service connects central Tokyo with Narita Airport and carries many international visitors. Several railway operators also accept contactless credit cards directly at gates on selected lines.

These changes address both busy commuter routes and travelers who may be unfamiliar with local ticket systems. Cities want to reduce bottlenecks during peak periods without building new corridors. Services also need to be easy for first time riders, including overseas visitors who may not have a local IC card.

Families carrying bags and managing strollers face a different version of the same practical problem: finding and presenting a ticket can be awkward when their hands are occupied. JR East is testing whether entry without touching a reader is fast and intuitive enough to sit alongside Suica and mobile wallets.

Outside the railway network, facial recognition has also been slated for staff entrance gates at the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo grounds. Airports have increasingly adopted automated biometric gates for border control and boarding. Performance in those settings, and public comfort with the technology, form part of the context for its reception at rail hubs.

What passengers and station staff would experience

A passenger pulling a trolley bag or a parent pushing a stroller could pass through a successful facial recognition gate without freeing a hand to tap a card or insert a ticket. Someone whose pass is normally on a phone could also avoid relying on the phone's battery at the end of a long day.

JR East's intended experience is simple: approach the lane, look ahead briefly and continue walking as the gate confirms access. Whether that experience works consistently is what the station trial is designed to examine.

Station staff would still need to manage lanes, answer questions and assist people who have difficulty using the system. Conventional gates and IC card acceptance remain the fallback, including for a registered participant whom the experimental lane fails to recognize.

A wider rollout would require consistent signs, clear registration and consent procedures, and an easy way for passengers to delete their data when they stop using facial recognition. The gate itself is only one part of the journey; enrollment, assistance and leaving the service also need to work smoothly.

March 31, 2026 is the next scheduled endpoint for the current trial. JR East will assess recognition performance, passage speed and questionnaires, then consider broader participation and potentially more stations. Its separate test on conventional lines, planned by spring 2027, will help shape the longer effort to establish dependable gates that passengers can walk through.

What to Know

• JR East began a public facial recognition gate trial on November 6, 2025, at Niigata and Nagaoka stations on the Joetsu Shinkansen.
• The trial runs until March 31, 2026, with one experimental lane at each station and normal gates remaining available.
• About 500 monitors are expected, initially limited to eligible Suica FREX and Suica FREX Pal commuters traveling between the two stations.
• NEC equipment is attached to existing gates at Niigata; Nagaoka tests a new gate involving JR East Mechatronics and Panasonic Connect.
• JR East is measuring recognition accuracy, walking speed, camera placement, passenger flow and user experience.
• Participation is voluntary, with encrypted facial data retained for limited periods and used for gate authentication.
• Later participation is planned for Otona no Kyujitsu Club members and Shinkansen electronic ticket users.
• A separate test of technologies other than facial recognition is planned on conventional lines by spring 2027, supporting a goal of wider deployment within the next decade.