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Fares and hours in Tokyo


Fares and hours in Tokyo

A Yamanote Line train.
A Yamanote Line train.
Most tickets and passes are sold from automated vending machines. Keep in mind that JR trains are free with a Japan Rail Pass . Prepaid fare cards are convenient and highly recommended because they allow you to ride trains without having to read the sometimes Japanese-only fare maps to determine your fare. There are two brands of prepaid fare cards, JR East's Suica, and PASMO, offered by private (non-JR) lines. Functionally they are completely interchangeable and can be used on just about every subway, train and bus line in Tokyo (with the noted exception of JR's Shinkansen and limited express trains). The fare cards are rechargeable "smart cards": you simply tap your card on the touch pad next to the turnstile as you go in, and do the same when going through to exit. There is an initial �500 deposit that you must pay when purchasing a fare card, but up to �20,000 in value can be stored on each card. The older Passnet cards are not accepted anymore. If you still own some of these, you can exchange them for a PASMO or Suica card. There are also some special tickets that allow unlimited travel, but most are unlikely to be useful to tourists unless you're planning to spend half your day on the train.
  • The Tokunai Pass (都区内パス) is a one-day pass good for travel on JR lines anywhere in the 23 wards of Tokyo (including the entire Yamanote Line and many stations surrounding it). It costs ¥730, making it economical if you plan to make five or more train hops in one day. A variant is the Tokunai Free Kippu (都区内フリーきっぷ), which also includes a round-trip into Tokyo from stations in the surrounding prefectures. The Monorail And Tokunai Free Kippu, which is good for two days and includes a round-trip from Haneda Airport to central Tokyo, is also sold for ¥2,000.
  • The Tokyo Free Kippu (東京フリーきっぷ) covers all JR, subway and city bus lines within the 23 wards. It costs ¥1,580 for one day, and covers a number of areas that are not served by JR, such as Roppongi and Odaiba.
  • The Holiday Pass (ホリデーパス) covers the entire JR network in the Tokyo metropolitan area, including Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and west Tokyo. It costs ¥2,300 for one day, and is only available on weekends, national holidays and during summer vacation (July 20 through August 31).
    • If you're paying a la carte, subway and train fares are based on distance, ranging from �110 to �310 for hops within central Tokyo. As a general rule of thumb, Tokyo Metro lines are cheapest, Toei lines are most expensive, and JR lines fall somewhere in the middle (but are usually cheaper than Metro for short trips, i.e. no more than 4 stations). Many of the private lines interoperate with the subways, which can occasionally make a single ride seem unreasonably expensive as you are in essence transferring to another line and fare system, even though you're still on the same train. E.g. changing between Metro subway line and Tokyu private line amounts to paying the sum of each fare: minimum fare Metro �160 + minimum fare Tokyu �120 = �280. In addition, several patterns of transfer are listed as "Transfer Discount", and the most famous one is �70 discount, that applies to a transfer between Tokyo Metro and Toei subway lines. When using Suica or PASMO, you can get all transfer discounts automatically. At some transfer stations, you may need to pass through a special transfer gate (both for paper tickets and PASMO/Suica) which is coloured orange - passing through the regular blue gate will not get you your transfer discount and if you have a paper ticket, you won't get it back. At some transfer points (e.g. Asakusa station) you may actually need to transfer on street level as the two stations (Metro Ginza Line and Toei Asakusa Line) are not physically connected and are about one block apart. It pays to check your route beforehand. The Tokyo Transfer Guide by the Tokyo Metro and Toei subway companies, is an online service that allows you to plan subway and train travel from point A to point B, based on time, cost, and transfers. This guide provides information for Tokyo only, and there are other sites which additionally cover the whole country, see the Japan page. Some major stations have terminals providing information similar to the Tokyo Transfer Guide. If you can't figure out how much it is to the destination, you can buy the cheapest ticket and pay the difference at the Fare Adjustment Machine (norikoshi) at the end. Most vending machines will let you buy a single ticket that covers a transfer between JR, subway and private lines, all the way to your destination, but working out how to do this may be a challenge if you are not familiar with the system. When transferring between systems, whether paying with tickets or smart cards, use the orange transfer gates to exit. Otherwise, you'll be charged full fare for both separate parts of your trip, instead of the cheaper transfer fare. Most train lines in Tokyo run from around 5:00AM to 1:00AM During peak hours they run about once every three minutes; even during off-peak hours it's less than ten minutes between trains. The only night when regular passenger services run overnight is for the New Year's Holiday on select lines. For additional information for train travel in Japan generally, refer to the By rail section in the Japan article.

    The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Tokyo

    Who is making announcements in English?

    In Tokyo, whichever train you take--namely, JR East, Tokyo Metro, Toei Subway, Tobu Railway, Seibu Railway, Odakyu Electric Railway, and Keisei Electric Railway--you will hear English announcements in a similar voice. Actually, they are all announced by the same voice actor, Christelle Ciari.

    In a Japanese interview she said, "Most railway companies I worked for did not give me any instruction on how to pronounce the station names in English. So I decided to read them in the original Japanese accent because I personally thought it was more natural and easier to comprehend for non-native speakers of English. The only exception was JR East, which instructed me to announce the station names in an American accent."

    Therefore, you will hear "Shibuya" on Tokyo Metro while you will hear "Sheebooyah" on JR trains.


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    Tokyo Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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