Comment by tionate

Comment by tionate 4 days ago

Old school but all the machines for paying in cash in Japan are so optimized for speed. Train stations, onboard buses, convenience stores. Just throw in a handful of coins and it quickly picks what it needs and returns what it doesn’t.

In other countries (eg australia), the ticket machines could only take a single coin at a time and would reject if you did it too fast.

I believe this is one (of several) reasons why cash has continued to be dominant in Japan.

yen223 4 days ago

Sydney lets you use your credit card to tap on to trains and buses, which is very nice

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tdeck 3 days ago

Vancouver does this too, at least on the SkyTrain. Very convenient when you're a visitor.

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- trillic 3 days ago
  
  as does Chicago. Credit card or just any tap to pay card on your phone works tapping in and out.
  
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  jjice a day ago
  
  Boston was the last major city I saw to actually add this in the US (every other major city metro I've seen has it). Boston got it last Spring or Summer if I recall. The MBTA is a nightmare, but at least I don't have to reload my Charlie Card anymore...
  
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bombcar 4 days ago

We have the tech in the USA but it’s only ever used for coin counting machines (which themselves are relatively rare).

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al_borland 4 days ago

Not only in coin counting machines.
I've seen people on YouTube using the U-Scan at Walmart like a CoinStar. Apparently if you lift where the coin slot is you can dump in coins and it will process it all. If the total is more than your bill, it gives you the money back.
While I'm not sure about the refund of an overpayment, there are also the toll booths that have buckets to throw change into. Though most tolls seem to be electronic these days.

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