Tricky software disrupts railway ticketing system
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E-mail CRI, January 19, 2013
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| The information about train tickets from Beijing, capital of China, to Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, on Jan. 26, 2013 is shown on the online railway ticket booking website of the Ministry of Railways, Jan. 7, 2013. The tickets for the upcoming Spring Festival rush period can be purchased via online and phone-call booking systems since Jan. 7. The 40-day 2013 Spring Festival travel rush will start on Jan. 26. The Spring Festival for family reunions begins from the first day of the first month of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, or Feb. 10, 2013. [Xinhua] |
The use of special software that allows passengers to buy online tickets more quickly than regular website purchasers has created an unfair advantage with buying highly sought-after rail tickets as the traditional Spring Festival holiday period approaches, eastday.com reports.
The software also poses security risks to passenger information submitted online, such as passenger names, passwords and ID numbers, as it causes the regular ticket-booking website to sometimes malfunction according to railway experts.
Some passengers are using the software to buy tickets on the Ministry of Railways ticket-booking website (www.12306.cn), making it unfair for others trying to buy rail tickets online, said Zhu Jiansheng from the Institute of Computing Technology at the China Academy of Railway Sciences. "We are studying methods to ensure the fairness of access to railway tickets."
Many people have complained that the official ticket-booking website is no longer as busy and prone to problems as it once was, although train tickets remain very difficult to book. In many cases, they say they must use special ticket-booking software made by companies like Google, Kingsoft and 360 to buy tickets.
Rail ticket purchases already have entered their annual peak period in the run-up to the Spring Festival holiday period when many people travel back to their hometowns for family reunions. On Thursday, the Shanghai railway service sold 364,000 tickets.
Tickets for many trains were sold out in five to 10 minutes, while others for more popular destinations were gone in just 20 seconds. For example, tickets for the K696, the only train from Shanghai to the eastern part of Chongqing, were nearly sold out in three minutes with only 11 soft sleepers left. Shortly afterwards, the website began functioning abnormally after passengers clicked on the "buy ticket" button. After 20 minutes, all the train tickets had been sold out when normal online service resumed.
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