Kan'i itaku station
Encyclopedia
Train station
A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...
in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
which is operated by an entity other than the railway company using the station. These stations are commonly operated by the local municipality, an agricultural cooperative, a store in front of the station, or a private individual. Outside of the entity operating the station, there is no difference to the passenger using the station.
The station attendant generally sells passenger tickets through a ticket window and posts the train schedules, while the train conductor or driver handles collection and validation of tickets in most cases. Because the station attendant does not directly deal with the passengers outside of ticket sales, the types of tickets they can sell is generally limited to fare tickets and books of tickets. Because of this, kantaku stations are considered only one step above an unmanned station. There are a few places within the JR East and JR Kyushu, however, where the station attendant at a kantaku station handles the collection of the tickets as well as selling the tickets.
An exception to this are many of the kantaku stations operating within the area serviced by JR Central which have the MARS
MARS (ticket reservation system)
, which stands for MAgnetic electronic seat Reservation System or, more recently, Multi Access seat Reservation System, is a train ticket reservation system used by the railway companies of Japan Railways Group and travel agencies in Japan.The host of the system is located in Kokubunji, Tokyo and...
logo above the ticket window. These stations can sell tickets for any train within the JR Group, though most cannot be exchanged at a regular railway company operated station.