Railway operator China Railway Wuhan Group Co is experiencing a boom in business – having served 530,000 passengers on Jan 12, the third day of this year’s Spring Festival travel rush, according to local media reports.
Rail officials said that figure represented year-on-year growth of 22 percent.
The company said it has launched a total of 122 trains, departing stations in Wuhan city, to improve capacity during Spring Festival. Of these, 75 are bullet trains, 38 more than the same period last year.
Among the railway stations in Hubei province, the Wuchang, Hankou and Wuhan stations are expected to handle 270,000 passengers during the period, a year-on-year increase of eight percent.
Rail officials said long-distance passengers are mainly headed to destinations including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong province, Kunming in Yunnan province, Chengdu in Sichuan province and Shenyang in Liaoning province.
They said short-distance passengers from Wuhan will mostly head to Enshi, Yichang and Xiangyang.
This year’s Spring Festival travel rush starts on Jan 10 and will last for roughly 40 days, coming to an end on Feb 18.
According to statistics, some 70 percent of passengers chose to travel by bullet train.
Rail officials said it is worth noting that Wuhan introduced an e-ticket system for its bullet and high-speed trains, starting Dec 25.
With the launch of the system, e-tickets replace paper stubs and passengers can board trains using their ID cards or a QR code generated by China's official railway ticket-booking mobile app, called 12306.
Passengers can use valid ID cards and other identifiable documents. With these, they may purchase tickets to go through the self-service gates, for verification and check-ins and check-out procedures.
During the boarding process, passengers must be seated according to the date, train number, carriage number and seat number shown on the purchased ticket. When train staff members check the ticket, passengers should present the original valid ID cards used to purchase the ticket.
