Terms of use

Last updated September 6, 2026

These terms set out the conditions on which Starna (this site) may be used. By viewing this site, you are treated as having accepted them.

Starna is operated by Starna Studio, the trade name of an individual resident in Japan. The contact address is [email protected].

What this site is

Starna is a free reference site explaining how to ride public transport in cities abroad. It publishes practical content — fare guidance, how to buy a ticket, payment methods, and how to pass through the gates — in English and Japanese.

What is published is information that changes. Fares are revised, timetables are replaced, and the list of accepted card brands moves without notice. Starna is not a transit operator and does not act on behalf of one. Fares, times, payment options and service status must always be confirmed against the operator's own official information.

Starna does not sell tickets or take bookings. It provides no account, login or saved-data functions.

Accuracy of information

Starna takes care to publish accurately. How information is sourced, how update dates are displayed, and how information that has gone out of date is handled are set out on How we verify.

Nevertheless, no warranty is given that the content is complete, current, or fit for any particular purpose. Every page carries the date on which it was last updated, and pages that have not been checked for some time are marked as such. Before acting on anything, please check that date and the official link published alongside it.

Liability

For loss or damage arising from your use of the information on this site, and except in cases of our intentional misconduct or gross negligence, our liability is limited to damage that would ordinarily arise, and does not extend to lost profits or indirect damage. This limitation does not apply where we acted intentionally or with gross negligence.

Situations of the following kind are contemplated.

  • A fare shown here differs from the fare charged on the ground
  • A payment method listed here is refused at the gate
  • A timetable here has not caught up with a schedule change

In each case, please check the official source first. If you find an error, please write to us via Contact. Reports are treated as correction work.

Links to external sites

Starna carries links to external sites, including operator websites and Google Maps.

Starna is not responsible for the content, services or terms of any external site. Use of an external site is governed by the terms and privacy policy of the party operating it.

Starna may in future carry affiliate links in order to fund its operation. Where it does, the link will be labelled as such at the link itself, and the arrangement and the standards applied to it will be disclosed separately. The order in which things are listed, and how they are assessed, will not be changed on the basis of what they pay.

Intellectual property

The written guides, structure, route maps and design of this site, and the photographs taken by the operator, belong to the operator.

  • Text and the operator's own photographs — the explanations of how fares and gates work, and the photographs taken on location by the operator and family. Reuse requires permission in advance
  • Openly licensed photographs — photographs sourced from Wikimedia Commons and similar carry the photographer and licence (CC BY and the like) next to the image. Reusing those does not require our permission, but you must follow the conditions of the applicable licence, such as attribution
  • Raw facts — a fare amount, a departure time or a station name is not itself owned by anyone. Our arrangement of those facts (the tables, lists and route maps we build) is
  • Official operator data — parts derived from official GTFS feeds and official APIs remain subject to the licence of whoever publishes them
  • Trade marks — operator names, app names and card brand names belong to their owners. They are shown to identify things, not to imply partnership or endorsement

Please do not copy, republish, translate or redistribute our content beyond ordinary quotation. If you wish to reference something, quote briefly and link to the page concerned.

Prohibited conduct

  • Accessing the site at a rate, or scraping it at a scale, that interferes with normal operation
  • Republishing our material without attribution, or presenting it as your own verified research
  • Using our name or presentation to pass yourself off as connected to Starna

Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms and your use of the site are governed by the laws of Japan.

Any dispute will be brought before the Japanese court with jurisdiction over the operator's place of residence, as the court of first instance by exclusive agreement. If you are a consumer, this does not remove any right you have under mandatory law to bring proceedings in the courts of your own country of residence, or to rely on the consumer protection rules of that country.

Changes to these terms

Where these terms are changed, the updated version will appear on this page. The date at the top of the page indicates when it last changed.

For significant changes, the effective date will be stated before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the site after that date means you accept the updated terms.

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