With the coming of the Spring Festival holiday starting on Feb. 18, Chinese people have been busy booking train tickets online on the portal website (12306.com).

China's official train ticket booking website (12306.com) has entered a busy period in recent days, receiving 240,000 hits per second on average.[Photo/Xinhua]

After new regulations requiring users to book tickets 60 days ahead of the seven-day holiday were issued recently, users hurried to log onto the website to snatch up their tickets.

The website received 240,000 hits per second for about 4 million tickets issued on Dec. 21, the day that tickets for the eve of the Spring Festival, or Feb 18, 2015, became available.

Unlike in previous years when the system crashed under mounting booking demands, this year the online operation has gone smoothly so far with improved techniques, such as external cloud computing, expanded capacity and countermeasures against software for ticket hoarding.

China's big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, have witnessed a huge outflow of people during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday over the past few years, when millions of people travel thousands of miles to go back home for family reunions.

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