What's the buzz

Updated: 2012-01-09 07:59

(China Daily)

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This year, as well as lining up at the ticket window, passengers can now buy train tickets for their Spring Festival travel online and via a telephone booking service. Have you secured a ticket to take you home for the coming Spring Festival? Successful or not, China Daily mobile news readers share their views.

My experiences of trying to buy train tickets online have not been good. Therefore, when I heard that telephone booking is easier, I called the booking hotline 95105105 at 12 o'clock on Jan 7. The line was constantly busy, but persistence was finally rewarded when I successfully booked a ticket back home on Jan 18. It took less than half an hour to finally get my ticket from a nearby agency. Therefore, I strongly recommend the telephone booking service.

BUBUWEIYING, Jinan, Shandong province

My first experience of buying a train ticket online was a failure: the system charged for my ticket without recording my purchase, which was later solved by an additional payment afterwards. The online booking system is so poorly designed that passengers cannot even buy connecting tickets all in one go.

HUANWOHESHAN, Shanghai

Refreshing the Web the whole morning, I was excited to finally discover there were still 19 tickets left for the train I wanted. But when I submitted my order, I failed to get a ticket and then was unable to log in for the entire afternoon.

WONIU, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province

Knowing that online train ticket booking is available 12 days in advance, I got up at 6 am and was excited to find there were many sleeping berths left. But when I tried to purchase my ticket, even though I tried about 20 times, too many orders were coming in at the same time, and I was unable to confirm my order. The situation continued for over two hours and remained the same when I had to go to work. It was easy to access to the online booking system later in the evening, but all the tickets were sold out. I now face the dilemma of whether to get up early tomorrow and try again.

MANMANCAO, Guangzhou, Guangdong province

I bought my ticket online and received a printed ticket at the agency with my ID card. Generally speaking, it went rather smoothly with my friend's help. The newly launched online booking system is still far from stable and user-friendly. We need to seize every opportunity and stick to the end to get a ticket home no matter how.

MIWANGSHIDUAN, Shanghai

The key to improving efficiency and bringing real convenience to passengers is to increase the efficiency of transportation organizations to ensure supply meets demand.

CRH, Chengdu, Sichuan province

(China Daily 01/09/2012 page9)

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