Anger over online railway ticket sales
By Zha Minjie |
January 6, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
Online rail ticket booking, widely promoted this year, has been criticized after a migrant worker wrote about his unsuccessful attempts to buy a ticket home for the Spring Festival.
Huang Qinghong's letter to the Ministry of Railways was published in a Zhejiang Province newspaper and detailed his efforts to secure a ticket in Wenzhou, where the 37-year-old works in a factory.
Huang, a Sichuan Province native, queued up at ticket booths four times but failed to get a ticket.
"In the past years, we still had the opportunity to buy the tickets as long as we lined up, even it means the whole night and day," Huang said in the letter.
"The online booking system is too complex for us to use, too unrealistic," he wrote.
The Ministry of Railways began allowing customers to book tickets online or by phone in the hope of putting an end to complaints of how arduous it is to buy tickets in the run-up to major holidays.
But, Huang said, with the majority of tickets sold to online buyers, there were few left for purchase from ticket booths.
"We migrant workers have no idea how to use the Internet. Queuing for hours is actually less tortuous for us," he wrote.
Feng Hua, a construction worker, agreed, saying: "Buying tickets was easier before the regulations were changed for this Spring Festival."
Feng, queuing at the railway station in the eastern city of Hangzhou, told Xinhua news agency that the station had cut short its pre-sale period to only three days ahead of departure since online and phone booking had been introduced.
"I do not know how to use the Internet. I do not have a bank card for transactions. I do not even know the booking phone number," he said.
Feng asked his nephew, a college student, to help him reserve tickets for the 35-hour train journey home to southwest Yunnan Province.
Despite the long travel time, Feng still chooses to go by train because the lowest fare is less than 300 yuan (US$47.6), a fifth of the cheapest air ticket. But Feng has already spent too much on train tickets, Xinhua said.
He paid more than 1,000 yuan to a swindler who his nephew said was an agent for phone booking. "But when I came to claim the booked ticket on Monday, the staff told me that there was no record of my booking," Feng said.
"My nephew is a college student, and even he could not figure the ticketing out. How am I supposed to?" Feng said, adding that his only choice would be a 680 yuan bus fare if he couldn't get a train ticket.
Zhu Dacui, a migrant worker from Jiangxi Province, burst into tears among crowds queuing for tickets at Hangzhou Railway Station.
Zhu told Xinhua she could not manage to buy a ticket as the new ticketing system was too complicated.
In his letter to the railway ministry, Huang said that after workers had lined up at the booths for hours, they found tickets, especially those for popular routes, had sold out. "Now we have nothing, no hope, nothing."
Huang said he can't use computers, nor can his fellow factory workers.
They saved up their money to send back to their families and were unwilling to buy a computer.
"I save to buy something for my 6-year-old daughter back home," he said. "Even if we had a computer, we have no time to learn how to use it after a whole day at work."
Telephone booking also failed as the line was always "busy," Huang wrote.
Zhao Jixiong, a Sichuan native, complained at a ticket market near Shanghai Railway Station: "I spent 100 yuan and consumed all my two mobile phone batteries, but it did not get me and my family a single ticket."
Shanghai Railway Bureau said about 15 percent of tickets sold each day were via the Internet. Combined Internet and phone sales were about 28 percent of the total.
The travel rush begins on Sunday and will last for 40 days. Shanghai's three major railway stations are expected to handle more than 7 million passengers, a 6 percent increase over last year.
Extra train services will be added to meet the demand, said Liu Yijun, a Shanghai Railway Station official, and more than 60 percent of tickets would be for migrant workers.
Huang Qinghong's letter to the Ministry of Railways was published in a Zhejiang Province newspaper and detailed his efforts to secure a ticket in Wenzhou, where the 37-year-old works in a factory.
Huang, a Sichuan Province native, queued up at ticket booths four times but failed to get a ticket.
"In the past years, we still had the opportunity to buy the tickets as long as we lined up, even it means the whole night and day," Huang said in the letter.
"The online booking system is too complex for us to use, too unrealistic," he wrote.
The Ministry of Railways began allowing customers to book tickets online or by phone in the hope of putting an end to complaints of how arduous it is to buy tickets in the run-up to major holidays.
But, Huang said, with the majority of tickets sold to online buyers, there were few left for purchase from ticket booths.
"We migrant workers have no idea how to use the Internet. Queuing for hours is actually less tortuous for us," he wrote.
Feng Hua, a construction worker, agreed, saying: "Buying tickets was easier before the regulations were changed for this Spring Festival."
Feng, queuing at the railway station in the eastern city of Hangzhou, told Xinhua news agency that the station had cut short its pre-sale period to only three days ahead of departure since online and phone booking had been introduced.
"I do not know how to use the Internet. I do not have a bank card for transactions. I do not even know the booking phone number," he said.
Feng asked his nephew, a college student, to help him reserve tickets for the 35-hour train journey home to southwest Yunnan Province.
Despite the long travel time, Feng still chooses to go by train because the lowest fare is less than 300 yuan (US$47.6), a fifth of the cheapest air ticket. But Feng has already spent too much on train tickets, Xinhua said.
He paid more than 1,000 yuan to a swindler who his nephew said was an agent for phone booking. "But when I came to claim the booked ticket on Monday, the staff told me that there was no record of my booking," Feng said.
"My nephew is a college student, and even he could not figure the ticketing out. How am I supposed to?" Feng said, adding that his only choice would be a 680 yuan bus fare if he couldn't get a train ticket.
Zhu Dacui, a migrant worker from Jiangxi Province, burst into tears among crowds queuing for tickets at Hangzhou Railway Station.
Zhu told Xinhua she could not manage to buy a ticket as the new ticketing system was too complicated.
In his letter to the railway ministry, Huang said that after workers had lined up at the booths for hours, they found tickets, especially those for popular routes, had sold out. "Now we have nothing, no hope, nothing."
Huang said he can't use computers, nor can his fellow factory workers.
They saved up their money to send back to their families and were unwilling to buy a computer.
"I save to buy something for my 6-year-old daughter back home," he said. "Even if we had a computer, we have no time to learn how to use it after a whole day at work."
Telephone booking also failed as the line was always "busy," Huang wrote.
Zhao Jixiong, a Sichuan native, complained at a ticket market near Shanghai Railway Station: "I spent 100 yuan and consumed all my two mobile phone batteries, but it did not get me and my family a single ticket."
Shanghai Railway Bureau said about 15 percent of tickets sold each day were via the Internet. Combined Internet and phone sales were about 28 percent of the total.
The travel rush begins on Sunday and will last for 40 days. Shanghai's three major railway stations are expected to handle more than 7 million passengers, a 6 percent increase over last year.
Extra train services will be added to meet the demand, said Liu Yijun, a Shanghai Railway Station official, and more than 60 percent of tickets would be for migrant workers.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
