Easier ticket purchasing

Although travel has become more comfortable, the shortage of tickets remains one of the main concerns during chunyun. For years, the difficulty of snapping up a ticket was a subject of popular searches on China's social media platforms. The hardships that had once plagued many Chinese travelers were greatly alleviated with the launch of the 12306 online booking system. Gone were the days of lining up overnight for a ticket.

The 12306 railway ticketing system has become the world's largest real-time ticket transaction system. At peak times it issues over 1,000 tickets per second, allowing users to complete their purchase in just 1.2 seconds.

Yan Zhiyuan, a researcher at the China Academy of Railway Sciences, said that his team has expanded internet bandwidth to handle increased traffic, strengthened cloud-based query capabilities, enhanced transaction processing capacity for massive ticket sales and curbed third-party ticket scalping — all aimed at ensuring fair, organized and user-friendly booking.

Wang Youni, a duty stationmaster at Beijing West Railway Station, recalled how ticket halls once teemed with people sitting on small stools for hours.

"Now, there is no need for that. Everyone can buy tickets on their phones. In the past, people would have lined up all night, and even then they weren't guaranteed a ticket," she said.

"Now, stations are much safer. My child was in college and sometimes traveled during chunyun for tourism. Of course, as a parent, I still worried — but it was a different kind of worry. It was no longer about safety like before," she said.