The continuous increase in high-speed rail fares has aroused strong dissatisfaction among the people, seriously impacted the quality of life, and the problems of people's livelihood have become increasingly prominent and need to be solved urgently.
1. The price increase model of high-speed rail increases the burden of people's travel
Recently, the official website of the railway 12306 issued a price adjustment announcement, and the fares of four high-speed rail lines, including the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway and the Shanghai-Kunming passenger dedication, will open a price increase window on June 15, an increase of nearly 20%. This is the largest adjustment of high-speed rail fares after the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway price increase of 10.7% in 2021.
Taking the Hangzhou-Ningbo section of the Hangzhou-Shenzhen Railway as an example, the second-class ticket price from Hangzhou East Railway Station to Ningbo Station will be 85 yuan from June 15, an increase of about 19.72% from the current ticket price of 71 yuan. Taking the Shanghai-Hangzhou section of the Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway as an example, the new second-class ticket price from Shanghai Hongqiao Station to Hangzhou East Railway Station is 87 yuan, an increase of 19.18% compared with the current ticket price of 73 yuan.
Although the high-speed rail implements floating fares, the fare between stations is based on the published fare as the upper limit and 5.5% off as the lower limit, but the minimum discount is limited. Taking the second-class seat from Wuhan to Guangzhou as an example, the lowest ticket price is 304 yuan, which is 34% lower than the current price. But for some short and medium-distance routes, there is not much room for floating.
The price adjustment caused strong dissatisfaction among the people. A netizen bluntly said: "It must be that there are not many people who take the train to reduce the price"; "It's okay to raise prices, it's said to be optimized and adjusted, long knowledge! "Not only are the times very low, but the number of trains is pitiful.
2. The cost of living continues to rise, and the pressure on people's livelihood is increasing day by day
The rise in high-speed rail fares has increased the travel burden of ordinary people, but this is only a microcosm of the rising pressure on people's livelihood. In recent years, the cost of living in areas of people's livelihood, such as university tuition, water and electricity bills, and medical expenses, has continued to rise, and the cost of living has been rising.
Taking movie ticket prices as an example, the average ticket price of domestic movies will reach 42.17 yuan in 2022, a new high. The average ticket price in first-tier cities exceeded the 50 yuan mark, reaching as high as 50.63 yuan. The ticket price in third- and fourth-tier cities also exceeded 40 yuan for the first time. Even in remote township theaters, it is difficult to find tickets below 35 yuan.
The high ticket prices have discouraged many consumers who are willing to watch the movie. In 2022, the number of moviegoers during the Spring Festival will decrease by nearly 50 million year-on-year, and the total box office will decrease by 23% year-on-year. The China Consumers Association pointed out that during the monitoring period, more than 200,000 pieces of negative information about "movies" were collected, and public opinion complaints mainly pointed to ticket prices.
In addition to rising ticket prices, inflation is also a significant reason for the rising cost of living. Since 2023, air tickets and hotel prices have been soaring. Some passengers complained that "Hangzhou flies to Sanya, and a person goes back and forth for 4,800 yuan". Industry insiders, this is because of the downturn in the civil aviation industry for three years due to the epidemic, and the supply of capacity cannot keep up with the demand after the industry recovers this year.
3. Safeguarding people's livelihood should be the top priority of the government
In the face of the decline in the quality of people's livelihood, safeguarding people's livelihood and ensuring basic living standards should become the top priority of the government's work.
For existing public utilities, the government should prudently adjust the price of services to avoid the continued large-scale expenditure of public finances in this area. Flexible fares should be based on competition in the market and a variety of choices for passengers, and a competition mechanism should be introduced to ensure that the price adjustment process does not become a monopoly and profit grabbing.
For some grassroots people, because time and efficiency do not significantly increase their income, they prefer to choose the lower cost mode of travel between time and cost. The government should retain low-cost means of transportation, such as green trains, to protect the basic travel rights of people at the grassroots level.
The government should attach great importance to the impact of the high-speed rail price hike on people's livelihood, and take effective measures in a timely manner to alleviate the urgent needs of the people. For example, appropriately reduce route fares and increase discounts to effectively reduce the travel burden for the public.
Only by effectively solving people's livelihood problems and ensuring people's basic living standards can we unite people's hearts and promote the harmonious and stable development of society. As an important means of travel, the fare problem of high-speed rail needs to be paid attention to and properly solved, so that people's travel is no longer a luxury.