When users enter the required information on an exclusive website, a random combination of four stations is shown: clockwise from top left, Shin-Aomori, Yonezawa, Niigata and Shiroishi-Zao stations. East Japan Railway Co. and East Japan Railway Co. JR East will offer Shinkansen tickets at cheaper rates, with the catch being that the destination will be selected at random.
A JR East representative said that passengers would visit places they normally wouldn't and discover unexpected charms.
The discount service will start on a full-scale basis in December after a three-day trial run between Sept. 29 and Oct. 12.
Four out of 47 Shinkansen stations under JR East's jurisdiction are presented as candidate destinations when users enter the departing station Tokyo, Ueno or Omiya stations the times for departure and return and other information on an exclusive website.
Users can restart the process until they come across their favorite combination.
One of four stations will be selected at random as their destination when they apply for the trip.
Members of the JRE Point reward service can use the random-destination ticket to pay for shopping and charging the Suica IC card.
A round-trip Shinkansen ticket between Tokyo and Akita stations, for example, requires 24,220 JRE points.
The random-destination ticket will cost only 6,000 points.
A regular one-way ticket for the same destination is sold for about 18,000 yen.
In July, West Japan Railway Co. JR West introduced a similar program for passengers traveling on a Shinkansen or limited express train to or from its stations in Osaka.
The destination is determined by the roll of virtual dice.
The round-trip ticket costs 5,000 yen, giving passengers a discount of 50 to 80 percent off regular prices.