Kitaca

Kitaca (Japanese: キタカ, romanized: Kitaka) is a rechargeable contactless smart card ticketing system for public transport in Sapporo, Japan. It launched on October 25, 2008 and is managed by Hokkaido Railway Company. The card's name is a combination of the word for "north" (北, kita) and the English loanword "card". 北 is also the first character of Hokkaidō (北海道). Like other electronic fare collection systems in Japan, the card uses RFID technology developed by Sony corporation known as FeliCa. The card's mascot is an ezo momonga (Pteromys volans orii), a type of flying squirrel found in Hokkaidō, and was designed by Sora, an illustrator who lives in Sapporo. As of end August 2022, the number of cards issued was approximately 1.96 million.