China News Service, Guangzhou, September 29 (Guo Jun, Zhang Xiaomin, Zi Mingxing) According to the State Railway Guangzhou Bureau's report on the 29th, railway transportation will start on the National Day holiday, and the transportation period will be from September 29 to October 8, a total of 10 days. The Guangzhou Bureau of China Railway expects to send 26.6 million passengers, with an average of 2.66 million passengers per day, a year-on-year increase of 197,000 passengers, or 0.7%. The peak passenger flow will occur on October 1, with an estimated 3.75 million passengers, a year-on-year increase of 243,000 passengers, or 6.9%.
In the face of intensive passenger flow, the railway department is making every effort to ensure transportation capacity. At the same time, it specially appeals to passengers: when buying tickets for travel, please look for the official railway 12306 channel to avoid problems such as ticket purchase failures, information leaks, missed rides and missed trains due to the use of third-party platforms, which will affect holiday travel.
It is reported that recently, while serving passengers, railway staff discovered that some passengers submitted orders through a third-party website. The website had collected the ticket payment in advance, but the ticket purchase was not actually successful.
Guangzhou South Railway Station waiting hall. Photo courtesy of Guangzhou Bureau of China Railway
Similar situations are not isolated. 12306 complaint data shows that since the beginning of holiday transportation, many passengers have encountered trouble because of their trust in the "waiting synchronization" service of third-party platforms. After a passenger cancels the waitlist on the third-party platform, the platform will cancel the waitlist order together with the official 12306 system. Some passengers also bought other tickets through 12306 after synchronizing their waitlist orders on a third-party platform, and proactively canceled their previous waitlist orders. However, the third-party platform did not cancel the tickets simultaneously, causing the passengers to lose a refund fee.
In particular, after some passengers purchased tickets through a third-party platform, the train temporarily changed lanes (ticket gates) while waiting. Since they were unable to receive prompts from the 12306 App and were unable to view the latest waiting room and ticket gate information through the "Station Big Screen" function of the 12306 App, they ultimately missed checking in and boarding the train. The railway department stated that passenger flow will be intensive during the National Day holiday, and it is recommended that passengers give priority to purchasing tickets and checking information through the 12306 official channel.
The railway department reminds: The Railway 12306 platform is the only official channel for China Railway to provide Internet ticketing services to the society. It has never authorized any third-party platform to sell train tickets or handle train ticket-related businesses. It has never cooperated with any third-party platform organization, nor has it provided any data to third parties. There are no additional charges such as ticket purchase acceleration packages, ticket purchase membership fees, and carriage seat selection fees.
"Any user does not have priority to purchase tickets. Acceleration packages of any price purchased on third-party platforms cannot achieve priority purchase of tickets." The relevant person in charge of the Passenger Transport Center of the Guangzhou Bureau of China Railway stated that purchasing tickets through third-party platforms will not only not increase the success rate, but may encounter "traps" such as surcharges and bundled sales services. There are also risks of personal privacy information leakage and financial security risks. When refunding or changing tickets, passengers may not receive the refund due in time.
Starting from August 2023, the railway department will further optimize and improve the 12306 passenger information service function, and add new information such as additional temporary passenger trains in the same direction, delay reminders, and changes in ticket check-in locations.
In terms of waitlisted ticket purchases, the current average success rate of 12306 waitlisted ticket purchases is close to 70%. Railway 12306 continues to identify malicious ticket grabbing behaviors, and adopts methods such as placing them in slow queues and refusing to issue tickets to curb them to maintain a fair and just ticket purchasing environment. The railway department reminded that standby redemptions are carried out in the order in which orders are submitted, and there is no so-called "accelerated channel".
