I've mentioned this to a friend a few times, the biggest differences between the Japanese and Australian public transport systems is that we (Au) take ours for granted. We don't care about our trains and buses until they are not there (strikes), or late (traffic/human delays), and then we complain rather than attempt to fix the problem.
If our everyday work life depended on our transport system, and I mean really depended on it, we'd see a dramatic shift between what we have now and what we would have.
I live in a metro center 90 mins outside of Sydney CBD - I absolutely despise the train network it is expensive and perennially delayed. At least here locally trains occasionally won't even show up no announcement or anything just no train at the station. Due to funding cuts our local station isn't staffed anymore so you can't ask anyone whats going on just a bunch of people left on platform scratching their heads when train doesn't arrive nothing you can do except wait for next train.
I fly to Melbourne fairly regularly. Any trip that touches airport line adds about $15 to the fare because some genius decided it was a good idea to privatize the airport line. I spend almost a third of my airfare cost just on travelling to airport.
I'm only 10 minutes away from Brisbane CBD, and my closest bus/train stations have no staff. I remember 15 years ago the train station did having staff there for ticketing, but not anymore.
I used to see full length empty trains going out to the coast during peak hour as a "limited stop" service, yet regular commuters would have to pack onto 3 car all stop services. That there caused me to stop taking the train. The bus system also has it's faults but is generally ok. Worst I've seen are the ghost buses that just don't turn up but are still on the status boards.
Airport train fares were a exploited for a while until they did a crackdown on the passes. It'd cost you $10~ to go from the CBD to the airport, but the passes would only cost you $5. You could tap on to get on the train, and never tap off (which incurred a $5 fee, but you didn't care) then bin the pass afterwards because you weren't going to pay that fee.
It's these sorts of things are why our transport system will never progress, we are always looking to screw over something that we don't hold value in. If we needed it, we'd pay for it in fear of not having it.
If our everyday work life depended on our transport system, and I mean really depended on it, we'd see a dramatic shift between what we have now and what we would have.