This is primarily a tax optimization, FWIW. If I pay you 10万 in cash, I owe the government ~１万 and you owe the government maybe 3万 or so (depends heavily on bracket). If I pay you 10万 for your train ticket, neither of use owes the government additional taxes.

Thus, if we come to the agreement that your labor is worth 35万 a month to the company, it is in our mutual interest to characterize that as 25万 of salary and 10万 of "reasonable travel expenses."

There exists a spectrum of how aggressive companies are on this one. Some play things very safe and use the actual cost of the shortest public transportation between your house and the office, going to elaborate lengths to calculate that. Some say "We assume, unless you tell us differently, that transportation costs you more than 10万 a month, and will accordingly compensate you for the first 10万 of it." (The reimbursement is only non-taxable up to １０万.)

(Edit to add: １万円 = 10k yen = ~ $100. Much like our Indian friends count things in lahks and crores, Japanese breaks numbers lower than a hundred million into a count of 10^4 rather than a count of 10^3.)

The 万 is used in China as well, confusing as heck when talking about home prices.

On the opposite side I once hired someone in So Cal that had a long commute. Alhambra to Newport Beach. He lasted 2 weeks before he put in his notice because the commute was too long.

My GF had a job in the next city, thanks to roadworks and the like a 1.5 - 2 hour commute, unpaid; she worked 40 hours a week, plus 15-20 hours for commuting. IIRC a third of her crappy wage was spent on even getting to and from work, let alone the time. She's now self-employed in her own town, works 20ish hours a week, and makes about the same or a bit more.

Commuting is not something one does with pleasure, generally speaking.

Anyway there are pros and cons, these are just the cons. If you ask me public transport would be a big source of investments and a completely free service like say the justice system, public roads, parks etc. Moving about the city in the safest, most efficient, cheapest, cleanest and environmentally friendly manner that's mass transit (i.e. ignoring say bicycles) should be free if you ask me.

Sorry, that's my inner socialist leaking.

Now that smartphones are becoming ubiquitous, I suspect it could even be done statistically. Create a good transit app with embedded tracking. You'd know where people were trying to go to, how they ended up getting there, how long it took, etc.

Do that and you could eliminate all of the overhead of ticketing, charging, etc. It wouldn't be perfectly accurate, but it's not like the current system is either. [1]

[1] http://www.dw.com/en/jumping-the-barriers-on-the-paris-metro...

if this would have to be mandatory it wouldn't catch on with anyone remotely concerned about privacy.

You wouldn't happen to be American by any chance?

Obviously, this is not the most important point to decide whether they hire you or not, but the price of the commuting fee can make them choose between two similar candidates. Specially for low paying jobs.

Although school students only get a ticket for their way from school to home, and university students get a ticket that allows them to get anywhere in their region for free.