BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu
Jintao has ordered the Ministry of Railways (MOR) to "brainstorm for measures"
to help travelers over the annual Spring Festival travel peak.
The ministry's website on Thursday reported a message
from Hu, saying, "This year's Spring festival is facing a tougher supply-demand
imbalance and the ministry has to brainstorm for measures to promote passenger
convenience and open the measures to public. The ministry has to ensure a smooth
and safe transportation during the peak season."
Passengers head for their trains at the
Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing Jan. 15, 2009. China's annual
Spring Festival pessenger rush is getting started these days as the Spring
Festival comes close. (Xinhua/Guo Shasha) Photo Gallery>>>
Senior officials Zhou Yongkang and Zhang Dejiang have
also urged the ministry to investigate ticket shortage problems and take actions
to guarantee tickets.
In response to the instructions, Vice Minister of
Railways Wang Zhiguo said the ministry had ordered to suspend cargo services to
allow more passenger trains in the busiest southern and eastern regions.
Short-distance passenger trains would be suspended for more long-distance
trains. Hard sleepers would be changed to seats.
The ministry will also transfer passenger trains
serving northeast and northwest areas to south and east China and improve
schedules of temporary trains, especially those for students and migrant
workers.
Meanwhile, tickets will be sold only in the railway
ticket sales network, except for group tickets for students and migrant workers.
Hotels, restaurants and travel agencies are ordered to halt ticket booking
services, and major stations will adopt 24-hour sales.
Stations have to set up counters for students and
send staff to sell tickets in schools and places where migrant workers gather.
Sales staff are prohibited from buying tickets for
others, from carrying cash and mobile phones during work hours, from keeping
personal belongings on the sales desk.
Wang also apologized to passengers who had reacted
angrily to a video posted online, which showed a sales lady in Beijing Railway
Station printing 130 tickets for trains running to cities in the northeast.
Passengers had accused the station of scalping
tickets.
People queue up to buy train tickets at
the Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing Jan. 15, 2009. China's annual
Spring Festival pessenger rush is getting started these days as the Spring
Festival comes close. (Xinhua/Gao Xueyu) Photo
Gallery>>>
"On behalf of the ministry, I have to apologize to
passengers for their unpleasant feelings and misunderstandings the incident has
caused," Wang said. "The action was immediately investigated and turned out it
was part of advance preparations to save time for passengers. There was no
rumored collusion between railway staff and ticket scalpers."
He said the ministry pledged to crack down on
scalpers and exert strict supervision on booking systems, including sales
outlets and online booking.
Last December a nationwide campaign was launched to
tackle ticket counterfeiting and scalping. As of Thursday, the authorities had
detained 2,393 people in 2,009 scalping investigations and seized 78,237
tickets, of which 60,000 were counterfeit.
MOR spokesman Wang Yongping said insufficient
transport capacity resulted in the short supply and scalpers made it worse.
Almost 188 million people are expected to travel by
train in the holiday season, up 8 percent or 13.73 million from last year. The
daily rail traffic will grow by 340,000 people to a record average high of 4.7
million.
From Jan. 1 to 10, the number of passengers leaving
Beijing increased 29.4 percent year on year. The figure for Shanghai was 22.7
percent and Guangzhou 25.8 percent.
The Spring Festival rush started on Jan. 11. The
first four days saw 18.15 million travelers nationwide, 4.538 million a day, up
8.5 percent from a year earlier.
Wang said the ministry had arranged a record 2,208
temporary trains, 253 more than the same period last year, and more were yet to
come into service, but the supply was still far from enough, he added.
Wang Zhiguo said the ministry would start
construction on up to 30,000 kilometers of new lines with investment of more
than 2 trillion yuan (292.5 billion U.S. dollars) in two years.
Operational railways would stretch 110,000 kilometers
by 2012 when the difficulty of obtaining a ticket would be much eased, he added.
People queue up to buy tickets at the
Changsha Railway Station in Changsha, capital of central-south China's
Hunan Province, Jan. 8, 2009. The Spring Festival travel period, known as
Chunyun in Chinese, began to see its passenger peak in Changsha as the
college students and migrant workers started to return home. (Xinhua/Li
Ga) Photo
Gallery>>>
BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang
made an inspection of Beijing's transport sector on Monday to see how it was
coping with the expected peak passenger numbers for the upcoming Spring Festival
holiday.
Zhang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the
Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, visited Beijing West Railway
Station, the Liuliqiao long-distance bus terminal, and the Beijing Capital
Airport. Full story
BEIJING, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- As the annual Spring Festival
draws near, hundreds of millions of Chinese studying or working away from their
hometowns are rushing home for the reunion with their long-separated families.
But the rush means dramatic surges in passenger flows and
pain for the country's already-panting rail system. Full story
BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- China expects 2.32 billion
traveler-times during the upcoming 40-day travel peak as people flock home for
the traditional Spring Festival holiday, government authorities said Thursday.
That represents an 3.5-percent growth from the same period
of last year, according to officials at a teleconference held here Thursday by
eight central government departments. Full story
