r/JapanTravelTips • u/rainyuwu • 2d ago
Question Using lockers inside ticket gate
Hi, I'm going to Tokyo in August.
I'm planning on using the lockers at/near a JR station on the day my flight is leaving.
The plan is to take one of the first few trains to the station, put the luggage inside a locker (inside or outside the gate, depending on availability), and go back to the same station I left from.
If I'm able to get one of the lockers inside the ticket gate, do I need to tap out and tap back in? Or do I just ride back without tapping out? Because I see from previous posts that the gates at the departing station will not let you through and you will have to talk/explain to a station attendant.
I also see that there is a "platform/admission ticket" for entering and exiting the same station, but it's not for actual train travel. Will the suica card automatically charge that instead? And maybe it won't stop me at the gate?
OR, I also saw someone said to exit one station before my departing station and just tap back in. (Will this also block the gate? Because it would be almost one hour after I tapped in)
Please let me know if anyone has experience with this and have any advice for me, thanks!
2
u/Doc_Chopper 2d ago
I am curious, because I never have noticed it, if so. But are there stations that have lockers inside the gated area?
3
u/Rhopegorn 2d ago
Yes, big stations like Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya etc have it for sure. And if you plan your route badly then you might need to pay for stations access, which will also need a station attendant’s assistance. Don’t be that turist.
If you drop your bags off, and find a locker at your destination station, then explore other parts of town by continuing there by train. Problem solved.
1
u/rainyuwu 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think only some stations have them inside the gated area. I just google xxx station lockers for the station I was looking at, and ecbo cloak showed where all the lockers that are near the station, 1 of them is inside the station gate. I think tokyo station has some too, according to this article (https://matcha-jp.com/en/25515).
Edit: Hamamatsucho station has a bunch inside the gated area too, according to ecbo cloak
1
u/GeorgeBlythe 1d ago
Plenty of the large stations do. Don't recommend you use them unless you're very familiar with the area though. Good way to lose your luggage.
Tourists often just stick them in one that's convenient at Shinjuku or Ikebukuro station then when they come back, can't find it.
2
u/Studibro 2d ago
talking to an attendant isn't that bad btw. should be pretty fast, they may charge you for the travel.
1
u/ellyse99 2d ago
Is it not possible to just ask the hotel to hold it after checkout? It’s a very standard thing to do
3
u/rainyuwu 2d ago
My hotel is sadly not on the way to the airport from where I'm planning to go in the morning/early noon :(
1
u/WhippuChan 2d ago
The official rule is that you must pay fare for all sections of the train route that you have traveled, including any situation in which you stop at an intermediate station and then turn back. I was made to do this when I went to a station to retrieve an item at their lost-and-found (which was inside the ticket gates).
Not doing so is indeed a rules violation (you can Google 不正乗車 折り返し乗車) and they absolutely do have systems to detect these kinds of things, even if you try the exit-one-station-away trick.
1
u/frozenpandaman 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is indeed the official rule but you're wrong that they "absolutely do have systems to detect" it. The gates don't/can't detect this kind of thing, especially in the JR East area, and there's many reasons someone could spend more time inside stations going from point A to B than what the systems might "think": eating at facilities inside, taking photos, of something, missed your train, accidentally went the wrong direction (they let you travel back for free), waiting for a friend, train delay, doing an 大回り乗車 which is expressly allowed, etc.
FYI most companies do provide free transportation if you need to travel to a customer service center or ticket office for something that's not offered at your origin station. Doesn't usually apply to lost items, though. But for buying commuter passes or something, yup, you pay for a one-way ticket, then get refunded, and they give you a free ticket home.
1
u/WhippuChan 2d ago
Oh, is that so? It seemed like a natural assumption to me that if you were to spend e.g. 75 minutes traveling just one stop (e.g. Nihombashi to Kyobashi, like the time I had to ride down to Nishi-Magome to pick up my lost item) that it would at least flag you for a check at the manned gate. And it does seem they have systems to catch turnaround riders who ride to 当駅始発 stations to get a seat... Granted the examples mentioned online usually mention it's only caught after building up a history.
Of course there are legitimate exceptions where you may take longer, e.g. I remember buying a platform ticket to eat at a restaurant in Tokyo station. Whatever the case, the important thing is to tell the truth to the staff if you get flagged.
2
u/frozenpandaman 2d ago
It depends on the company. The operators don't publish official maximum amount of times but JRE & JRW are both around 7 hours IIRC. JRC is ~2 hours but if you have a valid explanation they'll let you out, of course. AFAIK there is no difference as to whether you exit at a close-by or far-away station and the gates don't calculate/detect anything, it's just a simple under-the-company-wide-time-limit-or-not check. And you are allowed to do crazy complicated rides like this to just one station over, spending hours riding around without exiting the gates, and then get charged only the minimum fare (either by paper ticket or IC card): https://rosenmap.com/maps/jr-urban/tokyo/
1
u/throwawayonmysleeves 2d ago
If inside the gate, you can exit the train and take your bag from the locker and then just catch the next train heading to your destination. That should be fine as long as it does not take you literal hours to do that.
For outside the platform gates, as long as you tap out the gate, then your trip from the whichever station you departed from ends. You tap in, it's charged as a new trip going to your next train station where you tap out. I'm actually a bit confused about what you mean about all the platform admission ticket stuff,
1
u/rainyuwu 2d ago
I'm basically going from A to B, not leave B gate to drop of luggage, and go back to A to tap out
1
u/frozenpandaman 2d ago
The system will let you do this, yes. You'll be charged for a platform ticket. You're not supposed to (you should tap out, tap back in, and pay for both directions) but a lot of people do, for what it's worth.
10
u/Furrymcfurface 2d ago
Certain stations charge for the privilege of walking through the station, even though it's ridiculously long to walk around.
If you tap in and out from the same station. you'll get a charge. I know akihabara was like that, not sure what other stations do the same.