Speaking to the Japanese students from my school, I learned that Japanese natives still have issues determining which tickets to buy for the station they want.
Since cars are not as common in Japan as they are in the United States, the train system is the way the majority of the population gets around--especially working people. Interestingly, the train system is often thought of as connected to sarariiman (salaryman) culture. Sarariiman is the word used for the ideal businessman in Japan. Riding the train early in the morning, or around dinner time, you can see hundreds of men and women in suits packed into the train like sardines.
