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by traceroute66 1033 days ago
> you can't pay with credit card (in 2023...), You need to either purchase a special card from a desk, or pay cash. In 2023

Erm, mate "in 2023" you can ALSO put a SUICA card on your phone's electronic wallet. ;-p

Frankly, give me Japan's rail system any day of the week. You can get across Tokyo, with multiple changes, and plan your arrival to the minute. Try that in NYC, London or any other city !

And as for the Shinkansen, it puts most other country's railway systems to shame.

Fun fact (IIRC): The headway (time between trains) is consistently down to something like 1m50s during rush-hour on Tokyo subway. It's nuts how freaking punctual the system is !
3 comments
EE84M3i 1033 days ago
Tokyo IS in a bit of a bind right now around IC cards for visitors.

Because of a "chip shortage" suica and passmo cards are not being sold right now (except for commuter cards)

Mobile suica and passmo only works on phones that have felica hardware and licenses. Recent iphones do worldwide, but most(all?) androids sold outside of Japan do not have this available.

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trilbyglens 1033 days ago
I've lived in Prague for 15 years and never seen a late subway connection. Even village busses are 99% on time. NYC is a shitty yardstick.
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spott 1033 days ago
> You can get across Tokyo, with multiple changes, and plan your arrival to the minute.

Except you can’t? You can know your arrival to the minute, but you can’t actually change it to the minute.

Which isn’t actually that much more useful than other systems. Occasionally you will be able to rely on cutting it close by scheduling your ride to arrive right before an apt, but most of the time you are basically in the same boat as in other cities: you are planning to arrive 10-30 minutes early because otherwise you would be late.

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traceroute66 1033 days ago
> Except you can’t? You can know your arrival to the minute, but you can’t actually change it to the minute.

I see the pedants have arrived.

I suspect you knew exactly what I meant. No further comment.

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spott 1033 days ago
I understand what you meant, my point is that it isn’t actually that valuable.

I was clarifying so that my point could be made. I’m sorry that it rubbed you the wrong way.

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