Railway stations embrace volume peak

As millions of travelers board trains to go home for the Spring Festival, China's railway stations are adding trains and increasing staff members amid the heat of the world's largest annual migration.

More than 6 million passengers got on trains on Thursday, marking the volume peak of the travel rush four days ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 23 this year, according to the Ministry of Railways.

The ministry ordered the addition of 703 trains nationwide on Thursday to handle the record-setting daily traffic volume.

Throngs of passengers have been seen in railway stations across China, but the process of getting them onto trains has been largely smooth, though slower, as this year's real-name ticket purchase adds an extra identification procedure for train travelers.

"Most passengers are aware of the identification procedure and have been cooperative during check-in," said a volunteer at the Shanghai Railway Station.

China required all train ticket buyers to register their names and have their ID cards checked prior to boarding, a real-name system introduced to stem the rampant ticket scalping that has plagued the Spring Festival travel rush for years.

In another effort to make purchasing train tickets more accessible, the Ministry of Railways now allows customers to book tickets online or by phone, which also eased strains on railway stations by cutting the long lines at ticket booths.

"In the past, the pre-festival rush season was marked by long lines of travelers wishing to book return tickets, which required the presence of many order-maintaining police and volunteers," said Liu Qingbin, an office director at the Shenyang Railway Station.

"This year, the number of people visiting our ticket booths has decreased by 70 percent, and we have more service personnel for passengers in the waiting halls," said Liu.

In Beijing, large numbers of police, railway officials, and volunteers have been dispatched to the city's two major railway stations to guarantee successful boarding.

A record 240,000 people are expected to board trains at the Beijing West Railway Station on Friday, said Song Jianguo, vice secretary of the station's committee of the Communist Party of China.

The Spring Festival travel season, known as "chunyun", kicked off on Jan. 8 this year, with hundreds of millions of people, mainly migrant workers and college students, heading home for family reunions during the most important festival in China.

A total of 3.16 billion passenger trips are expected during this year's 40-day travel rush, up 9.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

China's railways alone will carry 235 million passengers during the period, as train trips, which are generally cheaper than flights and safer than road transportation, are favored by the majority of those who are homeward bound.