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Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

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Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#281

Post by ZeroNietzsche »

isatty wrote: post #207
astrange wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese transit-using society is old and middle-class; those are the kind of people who follow rules. Americans are often more rule bound than Japanese people (we have HOAs and Nextdoor), but we just don't respect transit systems as much because we think of them as gifts we give to the poor/mentally ill/homeless. And then a lot of Americans have an anti-gentrification ideology ("rent-lowering gunshots" or "neighborh…

Japanese transit using society is not all old and middle class: it’s pretty much everyone who is not filthy rich isn’t it?

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Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#282

Post by ZeroNietzsche »

astrange wrote: post #215
isatty wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese transit using society is not all old and middle class: it’s pretty much everyone who is not filthy rich isn’t it?

Old meaning not young. Pretty much all crimes or any other forms of messy behavior worldwide are committed by young men. But the median age in NYC is 38 and Tokyo is 45. (source: two Google searches I just did). That means a lot! It's true they don't jump the gates often and they don't have loud panhandlers. Instead the societal transit ills are passed out drunks, suicides and molesters. (Not meaning these actually h…

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Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#283

Post by ZeroNietzsche »

astrange wrote: post #215
isatty wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese transit using society is not all old and middle class: it’s pretty much everyone who is not filthy rich isn’t it?

Old meaning not young. Pretty much all crimes or any other forms of messy behavior worldwide are committed by young men. But the median age in NYC is 38 and Tokyo is 45. (source: two Google searches I just did). That means a lot! It's true they don't jump the gates often and they don't have loud panhandlers. Instead the societal transit ills are passed out drunks, suicides and molesters. (Not meaning these actually h…

[dead]

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#284

Post by Nasrudith »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #136
lmm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan hugely subsidizes public transport both directly and indirectly, e.g. almost all employers will pay for employees to commute by public transport but not by car, because the government heavily incentivises them to do so. The Japanese transport providers are indeed more entrepreneurial about this kind of stuff, but I think that's more a case of Japan having high trust in government and quasi-governmental entities…

Or the Hong Kong model. Railway operators are also property developers whose main profits comes from selling homes next to important stations. (This is not necessarily a good thing)

What exactly is wrong with said approach? My guesses are sprawl promotion and attendantly encouraging elimination of green spaces more than normal for developers?

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#285

Post by maxgashkov »

suddenexample wrote: post #185
lorenzotenti wrote: post #160

What really stands out is the difference in design philosophy. In London, the gates are normally closed and only open if your Oyster card is valid. In Tokyo, the gates are open by default and only close if your card fails. You don’t have to wait for doors to open and close every time—it just keeps the flow moving and feels way faster.

That's only enabled by the difference in culture though, right? Japanese culture has a much higher emphasis on order and following the rules - I don't know that this "open-by-default" system would work in, for instance, the US.

Please don't read too much into it. Outside of the peak demand at least here, in Kansai area, gates will close when they sense you approaching to indicate that you actually need to touch the card or insert a ticket. They stay open only if there is a continuous flow of passengers going one after another.

Another interesting fact is that gates' actuators are not super rigid and it's completely possible to force enter not realizing in time your card has failed (you will be approached by station attendant though).

To summarize, culture may play a role but the main differentiator is the high traffic volume.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#286

Post by maxgashkov »

lxgr wrote: post #90
pwim wrote: post #5

Unfortunately transit operators are looking to discontinue the use of these IC cards in favour of QR codes as part of a cost saving strategy: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241015/p2a/00m/0bu/01...

I believe QR codes are mostly intended to replace paper/magnetic single-ride tickets, not IC cards, in most transit systems. Magnetic tickets are already slower than IC cards, and are both more expensive to produce and harder to recycle than QR codes printed on regular paper.

Not only more expensive to produce and recycle, but the gates have to be extremely complex to handle paper tickets (some railway museums in Japan have them cross-cut on display!).

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#287

Post by maxgashkov »

lmm wrote: post #118
makeitdouble wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle: mass transit is seen at best as a cost center in the west, when it's more expected to be a fully profitable business in Japan [0] Paris adopted an IC system as well and it is pretty usable, but not pushed to the extremes of the JR system because they weren't ready to invest as much, manage the money aspect and really make it a full blown business. [0] some lines and areas are definitely money pits. Tha…

Japan hugely subsidizes public transport both directly and indirectly, e.g. almost all employers will pay for employees to commute by public transport but not by car, because the government heavily incentivises them to do so. The Japanese transport providers are indeed more entrepreneurial about this kind of stuff, but I think that's more a case of Japan having high trust in government and quasi-governmental entities…

> almost all employers will pay for employees to commute by public transport but not by car, because the government heavily incentivises them to do so

Could you clarify this? To my knowledge only 2 things that could qualify as incentive exist:

- commuting allowances are not considered taxable income for employee

- commuting allowance could be used to reduce tax base for the business

But this is not something I'd call 'heavily'.

My understanding is that commute is universally covered as this is an expected job benefit in Japan, and commuting by car is disencouraged in cities due to the increased insurance liability (as commuting time could be considered work time and injuries incurred to 3rd party will expose the company to liability as well).

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#288

Post by charlieyu1 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #284
charlieyu1 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the Hong Kong model. Railway operators are also property developers whose main profits comes from selling homes next to important stations. (This is not necessarily a good thing)

What exactly is wrong with said approach? My guesses are sprawl promotion and attendantly encouraging elimination of green spaces more than normal for developers?

Cronyism, in general. Government pushing for policies favouring railways and cutting bus routes while being the biggest shareholder of the railway company.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#289

Post by socalgal2 »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #176
socalgal2 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I travel by train a shitton through all of Europe, and I have _never_ had the issue of boarding a train without knowing if I had a valid ticket for it. Like I said, I was used to Japan. I couldn't have boarded a train without passing through a gate for which I would have needed a ticket. As pointed out above, that happened in Paris. At no point between the metro and the train was their any barrier preventing me fro…

Yes, slowing down native users of public transportation because of tourists is a big, popular movement in places like Paris. /s To transform your argument: why do my partially-disabled relatives now need to walk by themselves to their train seats? Just so that people who don't even read the instructions do not make a mistake that is going to result in a slap on the wrist fine (if anything, cause few revisors are goin…

> Yes, slowing down native users of public transportation because of tourists is a big, popular movement in places like Paris. /s

This argument falls flat give Japan's transit is infinitely more efficient and handles far more people than Paris. No one is slowed down by Japan's system.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#290

Post by anArbitraryOne »

notpushkin wrote: post #234
anArbitraryOne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They even work when the phone is off

Is the card stored on the NFC chip? Or are you talking about these NFC-enabled SIM cards?

Never tried it without the sim, so I assume it is stored on the NFC chip, but really have no idea
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