OSAKA — West Japan Railway plans to launch a smartphone app fee service as early as subsequent yr, making it the primary Japanese practice operator to enter a market populated by cellular carriers and tech corporations, Nikkei has realized.
With the transfer, JR West hopes to leverage knowledge from its 5 million every day riders to develop new income streams. It has been trying to strengthen non-railway companies as railway income development has grow to be tough attributable to a declining inhabitants in its operational space, which covers the western half of the primary island of Honshu.