Its said that the Japanese set their watches by the trains. I believe it. Trains in Japan are generally very timely, efficient and cost effective. Japans cities are efficiently weaved together by threads of track, making big and small cities easily accessible. And the trains always arrive on time, so much so that "my train was late" is not an acceptable excuse for any tardiness.
On the local trains you present your payment ticket when you get off the train, but if you lost your ticket you must remember the station you came from in order to pay the correct amount. Some people would cheat the system and say they came from the closest stop to their destination, when in actuality they just ventured 5 hours from Nagoya to Tokyo. In effect they would save over a hundred dollars on their ticket (as compared with a shinkansen, expensive high speed train ticket) if they did such a thing. Of course this only works on local trains, which take time to go long distances. And of course I would never promote or do such a thing myself.