CRI听力:Train Tickets

The world's largest annual migration is on its way - As China's spring festival approaches, hundreds of millions of people working or studying outside their hometowns are hurrying to reunite with their families.

Today is "Small Spring Festival", the 9th day after this year's travel rush has started. Millions of people are on their way back home. Here are three notices that you may need to be aware of.

Notice one: the ticket sale booths and railway stations under the management of Beijing Railway Administration began to sell tickets 10 days in advance.

Notice two: Wuhan Guangzhou High Speed Railways have canceled ID card passage services. Guangzhou Railway Corporation said yesterday that this service will be canceled from January 18th to 22rd at Guangzhou South Station and at Changsha station from January 28th to February 1st. The railway departments suggest that the passengers arrive at the station at least one hour in advance to get their train ticket.

Notice three: several trains passing by Guangdong Hainan Railway Section have been delayed by the heavy fog. T202 from Sanya will arrive at Beijing West at 20:30, 14 hours late. Consequently, the T15 from Beijing West to Guangzhou will be rescheduled.

To cope with the travel rush, the country's railway system has launched an online ticket-booking and a real-name ticket purchasing system which requires passengers to provide their ID numbers when buying tickets. The website www.12306.cn is one of the world's largest real time trading systems, which provides services to more than one billion visitors per day from January 5th. Given that China's population is around 1.3 billion, it means nearly everyone in the country has visited the website once.

Many people find it extremely difficult to get a train ticket online, because the process is complicated and the system has crashed a few times. Railway authorities have been under huge pressure to deal with these problems. Zhao Chunlei, Deputy Director of Transportation Department of Ministry of Railways, admits they have received many complaints.

"We made estimations beforehand and had the system tested. But we didn't expect such a huge number of visitors. But the system is another option for people to buy tickets, so we think it's nevertheless an improvement for travelers' convenience."

Of the three channels of tickets sales, the online system has sold about 20% of the total tickets during the Spring Festival travel rush. According to Zhao, the online system was tested before it went into service, showing that it should be able to handle 1 million sales per day.

"Actually, the daily number of website visitors did not exceed our expectations; it's the rush of visitors that causes the system to crash. For instance, a huge number of people pour into the website in the morning when the tickets begin to sell. That's an oversight we didn't consider."

Zhao says the Ministry of Railways will improve their work and make sure these problems won't happen in next year's travel rush.

The nation's transportation system is expecting nearly 3.2 billion passenger trips this Spring Festival, which means nearly everyone in the country is traveling twice.

With 7 days to go before the Lunar New Year, my main hope is that everyone gets home safely.

For CRI, this is Li Ningjing.