Scalper crackdown eyed for Spring Festival as 210m take to the rails
- Source: Global Times
- [02:39 January 21 2010]
- Comments
By Song Shengxia
Passengers rush to catch their trains at Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing, China, Jan. 20, 2010. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai)
With 210 million passengers expected to travel home by train for this year's Spring Festival holiday, some attempts are being made to cut down on the number of scalped tickets, but demand for rides is still overwhelming.
More than ever, potential travelers face difficulties in trying to acquire a ticket as the overburdened and expanding rail system isn't growing fast enough to keep up with demand during peak times.
The 2010 Spring Festival transport rush, or chunyun, officially starts January 30, and it ends a month after the Chinese New Year's Day on February 14.
Gao Xiaobing, a Ministry of Railways director, said at a press conference Wednesday in Beijing that the 210 million travelers represent a year-on-year increase of 18.2 million passengers, up 9.5 percent.
To make things worse, scalpers find ways to stockpile tickets and resell them at higher prices, worsening the ticket-shortage problem. Some scalpers' income could reach more than 3 million yuan a year, according to a report by People's Daily last year.
To tackle the problem, railway authorities are gearing up for a name-based train ticket system to stop scalping during the upcoming chunyun rush.
From today, Chengdu and Guangzhou railway stations will require passengers to show official identification when purchasing train tickets.
Sales staff are also prohibited from buying tickets for others, from carrying cash and mobile phones during work hours, and from keeping personal belongings on the sales desk, the railway ministry said.
Liu Rui, 28, who has worked at the Zhengzhou railway station for eight years, said he has never felt so important in a run-up to the Spring Festival.
"I gotten so many calls, which are mostly from relatives, friends and friends' friends who I have never met, asking me to get a ticket for them," he said.
In the past few years, railway authorities have been trying to improve the transportation capacity. By the end of 2009, the operating mileage of Chinese railways reached 86,000 kilometers, leaping to second-most in the world. And 2009 passenger traffic reached 1.5 billion.
Wan Jun, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that travelers' mire of buying a ticket during the Spring Festival stems from the country's insufficient railway transportation capability.
"Improving railway transportation capability will effectively help meet the ticket demand of travelers," he said.
He said the real-name ticket selling system is the government's temporary measure, and he conceded that it should help crack down on scalpers this year.
"While an angel climbs an inch, a devil will climb 10," he said, noting that the measure will also mean longer check-in times for passengers.
Deng Jingyin, Guo Qiang and Yin Hang contributed to this story
