On April 17, train tickets for the May Day holiday were officially on sale. Many netizens said that after the ticket was issued, the ticket was "gray in seconds", that is, it was sold out. "12306 votes" related topics on the hot search.
The picture is from the Weibo screenshot
The picture is from the Weibo screenshot
According to media reports, due to the "superposition" of family visits, tourism and students, this year's "May Day" holiday, the railway passenger flow will show a strong growth trend. Taking Beijing West Railway Station as an example, on April 17, Beijing West Railway Station began to sell tickets for May 1, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Wuhan, Luoyang, Changsha and other directions are relatively popular, and tickets for popular trains have been sold out soon after they went on sale. Why are tickets on sale in seconds? How can I buy my favorite train tickets during the May Day holiday?
Image from @中国Railway
Question one
Why are tickets on sale in seconds?
On the afternoon of April 17, China Railway Group responded to the situation that the May Day tickets were "sold in seconds". According to @China Railway News, the person in charge of the passenger transport department of China Railway Group said that the May Day holiday passenger travel is highly concentrated, and the contradiction between capacity and demand is very prominent, resulting in a shortage of tickets in local areas and time periods, especially on some popular directions of the line, some trains with more suitable departure and arrival times and shorter travel time are the preferred travel options for many passengers. When the tickets for these trains are on sale, due to the very high attention of the majority of passengers, passengers will choose 12306 online ticket purchase, mobile APP, station windows and other ticketing channels to quickly "grab tickets", and there may be a "second light" phenomenon.
The railway department suggests that passengers can choose off-peak travel according to the availability of tickets in different time periods and directions, or they can choose to purchase tickets by waitlist ticket purchase, transfer transfer, etc., so as to increase the success rate of ticket purchase. The railway department will also dynamically optimize and adjust the train operation plan according to the data of railway 12306 advance ticket and standby ticket purchase, and increase the number of passenger trains on popular routes, directions and time periods in a timely manner, so as to meet the holiday travel needs of passengers.
Question two
Why is there a situation where there is a ticket for the whole journey and no ticket for the stop?
In response to this problem, the Beijing Railway Customer Service Center said, "The tickets released by the passing car are indeed not as many as the tickets for the whole train."
Generally, the whole journey ticket will be released first, and the intermediate station will release the ticket according to the proportion, so the ticket amount is smaller. "It is reported that if the whole ticket is not sold out, the proportion will be readjusted within 24 hours before departure and the ticket will be released again.
Previously, the official WeChat public account of 12306 had issued an article explaining that the demand for holiday transportation was "piled up", resulting in a phased tension in transportation capacity. In this case, the railway department will give priority to the ticket amount of long-distance trains to meet the long-distance passengers from the departure station to the terminal station, so as to maximize the utilization of capacity resources. Of course, it will also take into account the needs of short-haul passengers, and when the long-distance ticket amount is sufficient, it will dynamically adjust the ticket amount according to the change in demand, and automatically transfer part of the ticket amount to each station along the route in different time periods to meet the needs of short-haul passengers.
Question three
Buying a train ticket online shows that there are no remaining tickets, but there are tickets available at the self-service ticket vending machine?
Previously, some netizens reported that "buying train tickets through online channels shows that there are no remaining tickets, but there are remaining tickets on the self-service ticket vending machines", the technical person in charge of the railway 12306 introduced that the ticket source and ticket library of the 12306 website and the self-service ticket vending machine are the same, and there is no separate ticket amount for the self-service ticket vending machine. Due to the dynamic change of remaining ticket information, due to the network environment, in very rare cases, the number of remaining tickets in different ticketing channels may occasionally be displayed out of sync.
Question four
How do I buy tickets quickly?
On April 17, @中国铁路发布快速购票的攻略:
(1) Subscription of sales reminders: You can set multiple reminders through the system in advance according to the ticket sales time, so as to submit the ticket purchase order in time.
(2) The starting time of sales varies from station to station.
(3) Pre-fill information function, on the day of ticket sales, pre-fill in the passenger, train number, seat and other information, and when the ticket goes on sale, you can submit the order with one click.
Question five
How to "pick up the leak" if you don't grab the ticket?
In 2019, Railway 12306 launched the "Standby Ticket Purchase" function, with an average cash rate of about 70%, which was called the official "artifact of leakage" by netizens. It is important to note that each passenger can submit 6 pending waitlist orders, and a maximum of 9 passengers can be added to each order. When submitting a standby order, passengers can choose any 3 travel dates during the pre-sale period, and a maximum of 60 combinations of "date + train" can be selected, and each train can choose multiple seats.
The picture comes from the railway 12306 WeChat public account
Question six
Can ticket-grabbing software improve the success rate of ticket issuance?
Have you ever used ticket-grabbing software, or spent money to buy high-speed ticket-grabbing services? According to the railway department, some ticket-grabbing software has set up a large number of 12306 words on its relevant pages and function introductions, so that passengers mistakenly think that it has cooperation with the railway 12306 platform and the ticket amount is guaranteed. In fact, 12306 has never cooperated with any third-party platform organization, nor has it allocated the ticket amount to any third-party platform for sale, nor has it made data links with any third-party platform.
The remaining ticket data displayed on the page of the ticket-grabbing software platform is crawled from the information displayed on the page of the railway 12306 platform, and then modified and processed. When the tickets for a certain train are sold out, 12306 will show that there is no ticket for the train, but when it is displayed on the ticket-grabbing software platform, it will be changed to "with a ticket", which is essentially for passengers to "buy a long time by a short time" and "buy a short time by a long time".
Source: Beijing News