Passengers prepare to have tickets checked at a passenger station in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, Feb. 13, 2016. (Photo: Xinhua/Si Wei)
It's that time of the year again as millions of passengers begin scrambling for train tickets. Although the Spring Festival is still a month away, Thursday marks the start of the travel rush with the beginning of ticket sales online and via phone. From Saturday, passengers travelling on Jan 13 can buy tickets directly from train stations.
Standing in long lines to buy tickets and then waiting in equally long queues for ticket-checking are pains that every traveler had to bear. But this year technology could ease some of the headaches.
This year's Spring Festival falls on Jan 28, 2017. The Spring Festival travel season, or chunyun in Chinese, lasts 40 days between Jan 13 and Feb 21, 2017. It is the largest-scale annual human migration in the world.
Debut of face recognition technology
About 140,000 to 180,000 passengers have used the self-service check-in system since face recognition technology was rolled out at Beijing West Railway Station at the end of November. According to a railway official, the application of this technology means it takes only five seconds for each passenger to check in.
Such technology is also being used in other railway stations.
Passengers simply need to insert their ticket, along with their second-generation ID card into a checking machine, and face the camera for a few seconds to get into the station. As long as all the information matches, the gate will open, and passengers can then take their tickets and ID cards back.
The system has been widely welcomed as it saves times, said chinanews.com quoting travelers.
And face recognition check-in system is now in service from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm, but it will be operated longer depending on the passenger flow during the Spring Festival travel rush.
The old, red tickets without a magnetic strip, along with tickets for students, disabled people, soldiers and children cannot be used in the self-service machine. Passengers who are shorter than 1.2 meters or taller than 1.9 meters are also unable to use the system at present.
Passengers also have to take off their hats, glasses or anything else that obscures their features and might prevent the "scanning" of their faces.
