Why are the tickets for the May Day train running out？ Where did the ticket you wanted go？
focal point
"Second Light", "Second No" and "System Crash" … … This year’s "May 1" holiday to buy tickets, so many netizens lamented "too difficult." Some people even said that buying tickets is more embarrassing than Spring Festival travel rush.
Our reporter’s investigation found that the main reason behind this is that the epidemic prevention and control is generally stable, and the demand for traveling and returning home has soared in the short term. At the same time, it is also affected by the high incidence of grabbing tickets and brushing tickets, the short front of small holidays and the shortened pre-sale period of tickets.
The 12306 platform suggests that when it is difficult to buy tickets, you can try a variety of different schemes to buy tickets. At present, a number of lines have been added.
Probe into cause one
Traveling back home is as hot as Spring Festival travel rush.
On Wednesday morning, accompanied by the alarm clock "Didi", Zhang Wancheng immediately refreshed the 12306 official website, which he had already logged in, and prepared to buy a ticket back to Beijing during the May Day holiday. In less than 10 seconds, the page shows that both trains are in "standby" status. "It’s too difficult!" Zhang Wancheng lamented that he had not been back to his hometown for more than a year due to repeated epidemics. "I bought the ticket for going back two days in advance, and I chose to leave on a working day. I didn’t expect the ticket back to Beijing to be difficult. This year ‘ May Day ’ Buying a ticket is as difficult as Spring Festival travel rush! "
"I have promised my child to take him to Guangzhou to play. If he doesn’t go out, he will suffocate. ‘ May Day ’ It must be cashed. " Compared with Zhang Wancheng’s "It’s too difficult", Liu Xiaolin, who is shouldering the children’s expectations, seems lucky. In order to realize the agreement smoothly, she adopted the sea of people tactics in grabbing tickets early — — "Group assistance". "Scan the QR code and join a train ticket mutual help group. There are nearly 200 people in the group. Everyone keeps sending the help link … … I finally grabbed it. "
Why is it so difficult to buy tickets for the May Day holiday this year? The reporter’s investigation found that due to factors such as the prevention and control of the previous epidemic, "retaliatory travel" and "compensatory return home" were superimposed, and the demand for travel soared. Compared with the "May Day" in 2019, the number of tourists this year may be higher. Even this year’s "May 1" holiday travel demand is as hot as that of "Spring Festival travel rush" in 2019.
According to publicly reported data, the total number of domestic tourist receptions during the May 1 holiday in 2019 was 195 million. Reports released by many online travel platforms show that this year’s "May Day" may usher in "explosive travel". Some platforms predict that the number of "May 1" tourists this year is expected to exceed the same period in 2019, reaching a new high of 200 million. According to the data of 12306, as of 6 pm on April 17, a total of 3.15 million tickets were sold on May 1, more than three times that of the same period in 2019.
The reporter noted in particular that even compared with Spring Festival travel rush in 2019, the tickets for this year’s "May Day" holiday did not fall in the wind. The Forecast Report on Residents’ Travel during the May 1 holiday in 2021 predicts that the passenger flow of railways, civil aviation and roads will reach about 250 million in the six days from April 30 to May 5. Among them, the passenger flow of popular railway passenger lines is expected to exceed the level of the same period in 2019. Previously, it was reported that during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush Railway in 2019, the national railways sent a total of 410 million passengers.
"The main demand is booming. With the stability of epidemic prevention and control, there are more people with travel plans. " The reporter inquired about Ctrip’s travel, and a customer service said that it was difficult to buy tickets for May Day, and there were also some factors in the early stage. "This year, many people didn’t go home during the Chinese New Year, and they were ready to take advantage of ‘ May Day ’ Go home to visit relatives or have a holiday. "
There were 7 trains from Chengdu to Beijing on May 5, and only 2 K-prefix trains have tickets.
Exploration 2
The holiday front is short and the pre-sale period is also compressed.
In addition to the strong demand for traveling to visit relatives, the reporter found that there are still some factors that have increased the difficulty of purchasing tickets on May 1 ST in disguise. For example, compared with Spring Festival travel rush, where there are dozens of days, the May Day holiday is shorter, and the pre-sale period of tickets is reduced from the previous 30 days to 15 days.
12306 official website suggested that the pre-sale period was shortened to 15 days.
"With ‘ Spring Festival travel rush ’ Compared with ‘ May Day ’ The small holiday time is shorter and it is more difficult to buy tickets. " Fu Yujing, who didn’t grab the May Day home ticket this year, said angrily. In addition, some people think that the compression of the pre-sale period of train tickets leads to more concentrated time for everyone to buy tickets, which is another reason for the difficulty of buying tickets on May 1.
The reporter noted that in order to cooperate with local governments to implement normalization measures for epidemic prevention and control, from January 29 this year, the pre-sale period of railway tickets (website, APP, window, sales outlets and other ticketing channels) was uniformly adjusted to 15 days. "It turns out that you can buy tickets 30 days in advance, and the time is relatively abundant. Generally speaking, everyone’s itinerary will be relatively variable, and people who buy tickets and refund will not be particularly crowded." Fan Shumin, an office worker, said that after the pre-sale period is changed to 15 days, everyone will be more cautious in making decisions and arrangements. "Almost all of them will determine the itinerary before buying tickets, which will easily lead to passengers buying tickets centrally." In addition, holidays are often the peak of passenger flow, and "it is very difficult to buy tickets."
“‘ May Day ’ Holidays have always been a peak of travel. " 12306 national railway customer service hotline customer service said. In response to the question whether the ticket "second light" is insufficient supply or too many people buy tickets, the answer is "too many people buy it".
Exploration three
Platform scalpers sell tickets at high frequency to buy tickets.
The interview also found that some ticketing services and "scalpers" also made it more difficult to buy tickets. At present, all major network platforms have launched a variety of ticketing services with different rules, and there are even six different grades of ticketing services with platforms.
Xiao Zheng plans to travel to Nanjing on May 1. "When I look at some third-party platforms, I usually have a ticketing service." Many platforms will launch "dual-channel ticketing", in which the "residual ticket monitoring channel" has been opened by default, while the "standby ticket purchasing channel" needs to enter the user name and password of the 12306 platform to complete the login.
"According to the platform, the speed of grabbing tickets can be described as ‘ You get what you pay for ’ 。” Taking Ctrip as an example, Xiao Zheng found that the speed is divided into six grades: low speed, fast speed, high speed, extreme speed, light speed and VIP. Among them, there is no need to add money to grab tickets at low speed, but it shows that "ordinary networks are more difficult to grab tickets, and when there are too many people grabbing tickets, they need to queue up"; To grab tickets quickly, you should add 10 yuan, "give 5 power packages and enjoy the 20M fast network channel exclusively"; 50 yuan should be added to grab tickets at the speed of light, including "giving 25 power packages and enjoying the 500M speed of light network channel"; For VIP ticket grabbing, you can choose to pay 80 yuan or become a svip, "giving away 40 power packages and enjoying the exclusive server for 1000M ticket grabbing".
Ctrip. com, add money to grab a ticket back to Beijing on May 5.
In flying pig travel, the success rate of grabbing tickets is further quantified. Take the G5 train from Beijing South to Nanjing South on May 1st as an example. If you choose each express service in 20 yuan, the estimated success rate is 24.3%, each express service in 40 yuan, 25.8% and each light speed service in 60 yuan, 29.1%. "The difference between the types of ticketing services is not necessarily the speed of the network, but also the order of ticketing." The customer service said that the acceleration packages at different price points are mainly used to improve the queue ranking.
There are also some "scalpers" who are charging "dead eyes" to grab tickets. A "non-professional scalper" admitted that he didn’t have much stunts in grabbing tickets. "It’s similar to missing tickets. I’ve been watching when there are more tickets, so I quickly grabbed them."
"Whether it’s inviting friends to help speed up or paying for acceleration, it’s more just a gimmick." Bao Ran, deputy secretary-general of Zhongguancun Information Consumption Industry Alliance, said that high-frequency ticketing will increase the burden of the 12306 ticketing system, which may cause website paralysis, affect users’ normal ticket purchase, and even seriously constitute a crime of destroying computer information systems. "It is not only meaningless to spend money to grab tickets, but it may also cause privacy leaks."
first two sentences giving the theme in an eight-legged ( bagu 八股) essay (in the Ming and Qing dynasties)
Many lines have tried multiple schemes to add cars.
It is an option to solve the problem of "difficult to buy tickets" and travel, increase the number of trains and improve the capacity. In 2019, in Spring Festival travel rush, the national railways added more than 500 passenger trains every day on average. At that time, a daily travel map was implemented. Then, is it possible to add a car on May 1 this year? What should I do if I haven’t bought a ticket yet?
"Now all tickets are one-off, and they will not be sold out." A staff member of 12306 said that if you really didn’t buy a ticket, you can consider other trains with tickets. As for whether there is a problem of adding cars on May Day, he said that "no notice has been received".
However, the reporter found that in order to cope with the peak of "May 1" passenger travel, many routes have already added trains.
In the column of "Latest Developments" in 12306 official website, from April 29th, China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Co., Ltd. added some trains; China Railway Shanghai Bureau Group Co., Ltd. also added some passenger trains from April 30, 2021 to May 8, 2021; China Railway Guangzhou Bureau Group Co., Ltd. opened Changsha South on April 30th, May 1st, May 5th and May 6th. Nanchang west G4312 passenger train; China Railway Hohhot Bureau Group Co., Ltd. also issued the announcement of adding some temporary passenger trains during the May Day holiday.
Additional trains were selected for some routes during the May Day holiday.
Shen Shijie, secretary of the Party branch of the ticketing workshop of Beijing Railway Station, said earlier that from the afternoon of April 30th to the morning of May 1st, tickets in all directions were very tight. "The overall train operation has gradually recovered, not reaching 100% before the epidemic, but we think it should be 90%. Later, we will also report the operation plan of new trains according to the passenger flow."
For passengers who haven’t bought tickets for the time being, 12306 customer service suggests that they can place a standby order and wait for others to change their tickets or refund their tickets. In addition, some customer service revealed that the railway system has a principle of giving priority to the sale of tickets from the starting station to the terminal station, suggesting that passengers can try to buy them. Or, you can choose other different transfer schemes, "so the probability of grabbing tickets is greater."