Comparing ridership statistics between UK and Japanese stations...JR only lists boarding/entering passengers, while other Japanese private railways list combined entries and exists, like UK does. So to compare them, I'll just double JR numbers...
I would like to think that a big factor in this difference in shares is that subways and intercity/suburban railways in Japan are very similar in service standards, frequency, fare collection, rolling stock, etc...
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...and that with all else being about equal, the suburban and intercity railways have a much larger service area to draw from--something they can't take full advantage of if they are operated at lower standards (esp re: frequency and fare collection) than subways.
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But, even if there's some truth in this suspicion, I know it's not the whole story. I'm not sure how the Tube compares to intercity rail in terms of price for a ride, but I know that in Japan, subways almost always cost more per mile than intercity and suburban railways.
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Still--if you really want excellent ridership, you can't be relying on just the core urban population! So much of any "metropolitan area's" population is in its suburbs--the rail network has to work for them as well
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