Nippon Signal Company, Limited

On July 15, 2026, Tobu Railway began service for Tokyo's first "walk-through facial recognition gates" at Ikebukuro and Kamitabashi stations on the Tojo Line. The service is available to passengers holding PASMO commuter passes for sections including the two stations. The gates utilize the biometric authentication service "SAKULaLa," developed jointly with Hitachi, where cameras installed on the automatic ticket gates recognize faces to verify identity, allowing passengers to pass without stopping. Tobu Railway had previously introduced the system at Tobu Utsunomiya Station in May 2026, and for these two stations, existing automatic ticket gates were modified to accommodate the system. To expand the number of stations with the system, the company has collaborated with OMRON Social Solutions, Nippon Signal, and Toshiba to enhance the versatility of the facial recognition system. On the security front, the system combines Hitachi's "PBI" technology with Panasonic Connect's facial recognition technology, storing biometric information in the cloud in a form that cannot be restored, and generating and deleting secret keys each time. Ikebukuro Station, with an average of about 420,000 users per day, is the company's largest station and includes commercial facilities, making it a model case for the implementation.